


Beached

by morebeesthanyoucouldimagine



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Slow Build, merman eren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:47:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morebeesthanyoucouldimagine/pseuds/morebeesthanyoucouldimagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A curious merman is washed ashore during a storm and found by Levi, who decides to show his new fishy friend what it's like to be human before sending him back to the sea. Slow build with lotsa fluffiness along the way! There will be smut (eventually), so hang in there!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! So this is my first fic in this fandom and I'm quite excited about it! Please let me know if there are any errors you find and I will fix them as I don't have a beta. Anyho, I hope you enjoy! Reviews and kudos are super appreciated!!

Eren knew he shouldn’t have gone so close to the shore when Mikasa had warned him that a storm was brewing. His pigheadedness always got the best of him though, and his desire to actually see a real live human being had won over his sense of self preservation. 

Elders always told about the strange two-legged creatures that were confined to the ground, roaming aimlessly about and being the scapegoat of countless childrens’ tales that subliminally warned against any human interaction. Eren had been raised hearing these stories just like everybody else, but hadn’t given them any extra thought until Jean started running his mouth that morning.

There had been a shipwreck above their colony, causing a stir among the merpeople below as several human bodies were swirled in the water before being carried off by the current. Eren tried to swim closer to get a good look at the weird creatures, but his overprotective sister, Mikasa, had sternly held him back and said he would be better off not seeing. Then Jean, trying, no doubt, to stir Eren up, “offhandedly” commented about how no merman who had ever encountered a living human was ever seen or heard from again and no one ever would, especially a stupid flounder like him. Eren decided right there and then to prove that stupid seahorse face wrong.

Sneaking out from Mikasa’s all-seeing gaze hadn’t been easy, but Eren had finally managed to swim away from the colony, his blue-green tail providing a bit of camouflage as he sprinted in the direction of the closest known land mass. Not many merpeople swam out in that direction anyway, the frequency of fishermen being enough to keep those with any sense away. Eren had felt more freedom than he had ever experienced before as he swam among the colorful fish and darted around or far under the boats with their deadly nets.

But now, with the shore in sight and the water growing shallower by the second as the once blue sky blotted over with storm clouds, Eren was rethinking this escapade. Being near shore when a storm was lurking was really stupid--even for him--to attempt. It felt like giving up something he could only experience once in a lifetime though, and he was far from turning tail just because of some shifty weather.

Poking his head out of the water, his dark, salty hair sticking uncomfortably to his face, he peered across the 30 yards or so of churning water to where the land lay before him. He could see no humans on the beach, only the deserted sand and abandoned plastic toys beginning to be peppered with rain drops.

Frustration was starting to edge into Eren’s mind as he surveyed the empty beach. Damn it, I did not swim this far just for nobody to be here! Eren ducked back into the now churning water, shaking his head in anger. When he looked around him, the realization of what a dangerous situation he was in seemed to finally hit him.   
Oh shit this water is way too shallow. Eren spun frantically, looking for where the water was deeper, but the billows of sand moving with the current that was building what Eren was sure was a monstrous wave blocked his vision completely.

Eren’s second eyelid protected his eyes from sharp shells and sand, but unfortunately, the gills on either side of his neck had no such protective mechanism. Massive amounts of tiny scratchy sand particles were being sucked into his gills as he tried to breathe underwater, quickly forcing him to resurface in search of air. No sooner had he opened his mouth to breathe, an enormous wave that must have been at least 15 feet high broke over his head.

Barely having time to clamp his hands over his sensitive gills, Eren was slammed with the full force of the wave. Gritting his jagged teeth as his body was pummeled into the unforgiving sand, Eren made the mistake of letting go of his neck, desperately digging his webbed fingers into the sand and causing his gills to be nearly shredded by sharp slivers of shell he reflexively inhaled. The ocean showed no mercy, quickly plucking him up again and slamming his body back down like a rag doll in a discombobulated mix of foam and sand. Eren cried out, losing the rest of his oxygen as he was flung head over tail again and again until finally, the ocean finished its fun and unapologetically dumped his abused and unconscious body face down on hard, rain pelted sand.

 

“That shitty glasses would forget her fucking umbrella on the beach. Jesus, why the hell did I even agree to this trip in the first place?” A short man, his bowed head covered by a drenched green hoodie, struggled against the wind driven rain as he staggered across the sand. Narrowed eyes raked the ground for any sign of his eccentric friend’s stupid umbrella that he had been sent to retrieve.

“This sand will never get out of my clothes! Why couldn’t Hanji own a house somewhere cleaner?” the man, Levi, grumbled angrily as he stepped in a hole and stumbled before regaining his balance and facing the wind again. Glancing around, he finally spotted the object of his search.

“There you are, you shitty umbrella!” Levi held his hood down with one hand as he jogged unsteadily towards the umbrella, which was half buried in the sand and was almost in range of the rising tide. “Hanji better have made a damn good dinner for all this work she’s putting me through. This is supposed to be my vacation, after all.”

Levi’s voice was lost in the wind as he bent down to excavate the multicolored monstrosity. Tucking the umbrella under his arm, he was about to retreat to the safety of Hanji’s beach house before the storm escalated when a vicious gust of wind tore his hood from over his face.

“Fucking hell!” he swore, struggling to grab his hood. As he pulled it back over his head, he happened to glance further up shore. What is that? Levi secured his hood quickly and, against his better judgement, began trotting towards the strange shape laying on the sand and being buffeted by the waves, hoping to whatever god was watching that his eyes were playing tricks on him and it wasn’t a person spat out by the sea.

“Hey, hey you! Don’t you dare be dead!” Levi splashed through the shallow waves, realizing as he got closer that the person’s legs looked like they were caught in seaweed. Dropping Hanji’s umbrella, Levi knelt in the water, swiftly bracing the person’s neck and cautiously turning him over.

“Shit, you’re just a kid.” Levi looked over the boy’s scratched up face and torso, then tried to find a pulse on his neck. Levi’s eyes widened in surprise and disdain when he realized the kid’s neck seemed to be shredded. He was just trying to smooth over the six or so rips in his skin when the kid’s eyes flew open and he let out a bloodcurdling scream so suddenly that Levi fell back on his butt in the ankle-deep water.

Quickly composing himself and trying to ignore the itch of sand now intruding where it really shouldn’t be, Levi grasped the boy’s shoulders and shook him.

“Kid, snap out of it!” The boy instantly let off screaming and started coughing and retching violently instead, trying desperately to get the sand out of his lungs and gills and seemingly unaware of Levi’s presence as the older man held him up so he could throw up in the water. Gasping and with tears leaving trails in the sand coating his face, the boy began trembling, his wide eyes unfocused as Levi began to try to drag him from the gross water.

“Why the fuck are you so heavy?” Levi grumbled exasperatedly, lowering the shell-shocked boy’s torso gently on the sand. “It must be all that damn seaweed and shit on your legs.”

The rain began pelting the two in earnest as Levi moved to look at the kid’s legs, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he got a good look at the boy’s lower half.

“The fuck were you swimming in? This doesn’t look like seaweed, it looks like...a tail?” Levi shifted closer, examining the dully glinting scales and feathery tendrils that were plastered to the sand like wet paper. After an initial moment of shock, Levi mentally slapped himself into reality when he heard ragged hyperventilating. 

“Shit, okay kid let’s get you someplace safer. Hey, can you see me? I’m Levi and I won’t hurt you. Can you nod if you understand?” Levi had moved back to the merman’s head, but his eyes kept flicking back to the tail as if he expected it to disappear at any moment. He forced himself to focus, gently lifting the merman’s head with one hand to better shelter his face from the rain. After a few seconds, the boy’s neck muscles tensed and he gave a stiff nod, his enormous and terrified eyes finally focusing on Levi for the first time.

“Okay, I’m going to pick you up...can you be out of the water? I don’t want to kill you trying to save you, brat.”

“I’m not a brat or a kid, my name is Eren. And no I won’t die. Yet.” Eren rasped, flecks of blood splattering his lips as he talked and his eyes narrowing defensively. His gaze never left Levi as the man squatted over him and struggled to lift the ridiculously heavy merman, ending up with him carried bridal style. Eren’s eyes glassed in pain when he was lifted and he hissed through his sharp teeth, automatically wrapping his arms tightly around Levi’s neck.

“You alright?” Levi grunted, struggling to get a firm grip on the slippery scales.

“I think so,” Eren looked down at the fin of his tail, dangling a few inches above the sand, and gulped, quickly tucking his face into Levi’s neck. “Why are you so tall? I’m too high off the ground!”

Levi almost laughed, finally clasping his hand firmly under Eren’s tail and clinging tightly to a wispy dorsal fin to keep from dropping him.  
The struggle across the sand, battling the wind and rain with arms growing number with ever step, was one of the worst experiences of Levi’s life; especially because Eren kept falling asleep and Levi had to stop and shake him awake.

The one time I actually need Hanji’s scientific expertise, she’s not here. At least she’s rich and obnoxious enough to have an indoor saltwater pool. Levi smirked, glancing down at the boy’s closed eyes before sighing and pausing to shake his arms, waking him.

“Don’t fall asleep, kid. We’re almost off the beach, so only a few more minutes before we’re out of this god awful storm.”

“Bu’m tired,” Eren yawned, displaying his dagger-like teeth. “‘nd I told you, m’ name’s Eren.”

“ Well tough shit, Eren. Keep your eyes open so Hanji won’t kill me for letting you die of shock,” Levi panted.

“Mmmph.” Eren nuzzled his face against the side of Levi’s neck. Levi was about two seconds away from dropping the kid. Nobody’s allowed to rub their sandy face on me, fucking brat.

After what felt like an eternity and a half of struggling, Levi finally left the perilous sand behind and his feet hit the much missed firmness of the wooden dock leading to the backyard of Hanji’s beach house.

Eren yelped when Levi forced himself to jog, his tail fin scraping the wood, causing him to jump in Levi’s arms and nearly making the short man drop him.

“The fuck’s wrong with you?” Levi snarled, regaining his grip on eren as he stood still, waiting impatiently for Eren to respond.

“I think you ripped my fin,” Eren whimpered, making guilt instantly well up in Levi for snapping.

Since when have I felt guilty for hurting someone? This kid is weird; at least weird enough to mess with me…

Keeping a careful eye on Eren’s fin, Levi walked as quickly as he could, finally arriving at the bottom of the steps, and then at the door.

“Okay, so warning in advance, my friend Hanji is pretty eccentric and I don’t want you to freak out or feel any pressure to even talk to her if you don’t want--”

“Levi! I was so worr--oh. Oh! What have you got there Levi?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo chapter 2! Enjoy!

“Stop gaping at him, shitty glasses. You look more like a fish than he does!”

Hanji stuck out her tongue at Levi and tried to splash him with the warm, salty water of her indoor pool from where she sat on the edge. She had insisted on building it, since Levi came to visit over every summer and he refused to get in the ocean. It was something due to the “unsanitary conditions,” aka the reason Hanji loved being in the sea; so many microorganisms, so many strange unknown creatures! Levi wasn’t able to see her optimism.

When Levi had brought Eren to Hanji’s front porch, the scientist had nearly died of cardiac arrest she was so excited. She had tried her hardest to get Levi to pass the intimidated and ill looking merman over to her, but Levi had simply shoved her aside and walked shakily to the pool room.

Now, he was standing waist deep on the last step leading into the large oval-shaped pool--ridiculously too big in Levi’s opinion since it was rarely used by anyone other than him--and gently lowering Eren into the warm water. 

Eren looked at Levi worriedly once he was released, treading with his webbed fingers in the shallow water next to the steps where Levi perched. He didn’t want to admit it, but now that he was out of immediate danger, Eren was a bit intimidated by being surrounded by humans in a strange place with absolutely no escape. ‘A bit’ meaning a lot. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Hanji, who was positively drooling at the sight of his tail flicking lazily in the water, and shuddered slightly. Maybe it was his instinct to cling to safety, but he felt entirely too exposed being separated from Levi who, though he had known him for hardly enough time to judge his intentions, seemed genuinely concerned for Eren and had, after all, saved his life.

“Don’t worry, it gets much deeper on the other side. Besides, I’ll take you back once this storm blows over, so you’ll only be in here for a little while.”

Eren opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it when he saw Hanji leaning in like a predator about to lunge on her prey. He simply nodded instead before retreating under the surface with barely more than a ripple and slipping to the bottom of the 12 foot deep section on the other side of the pool.

“Wow, Levi! I can’t believe you found a merman and carried him all the way here! I thought my umbrella had carried you off and you’d float down the street like Mary Poppins since you were taking so long, but this is a million times better! Can we keep him? Please, please, pleaseeee? I have so many questions to ask! I wonder what he eats? Or if he sleeps on a schedule? How does he defecate? Did you notice his dorsal fin? How old is he? Where did he come from? Are there more…”

Levi tuned out his friend’s excited yells and instead marched through the foggy glass door between the sitting room and the pool. He figured changing out of his wet street clothes and into swim trunks seemed like the best option since it seemed he’d be spending much more time poolside than he usually did. Eren had looked almost panicked when he had been put in the water and Levi was, as little as he wanted to admit it, worried about him.

As he reentered the pool deck, Eren surfaced, peeking just his eyes and nose out of the water, seemed to take a deep breath, and disappeared below the surface.

“He’s a cutie, isn’t he?”

Levi turned abruptly to Hanji, who was staring at him with an infuriating mixture of excitement, deviousness, and expectancy. “I saw you being all sweet to him, you know. I’m not blind,” she winked at him and Levi gave her his best glare in return. Hanji giggled knowingly, taking her friend’s silence as confirmation.

“Anyhoo, I’ll go back to cooking supper since widdle Eren doesn’t seem to like me very much...yet. You should figure out what he likes to eat so we can all eat together like a big happy family!” Hanji ruffled Levi’s hair, receiving another glare, before skipping down the hallway, whistling a tune that would shoot an octave with every step.

Levi shook his head exasperatedly at his best friend’s antics before slipping through the glass sliding door. He walked barefoot in his black and white plaid swim trunks and white wife beater across the rough tiles towards the side of the pool.

Eren’s head surfaced again as Levi drew closer, but he was facing away from the human and seemed not to notice his presence. Levi could hear a raspy panting that sounded not at all healthy as Eren took a gulp of air and disappeared again.

Strange, why is he breathing like a chain smoker? Levi quickly strode to the edge of the water and peered down to where Eren was resting on the bottom. His eyes narrowed at what he saw before he ripped his shirt over his head and dove into the water.

Eren’s eyes flew open when he felt a hand on his back, and he nimbly spun around to come face to face with an angry looking Levi. Eren quickly withdrew his fingers from his gills where he had been vainly attempting to dig out the painful sand particles he had inhaled, feeling for all the world like he did when Mikasa was about to yell at him for doing something wrong. A wisp of blood followed his fingers, dissipating slowly into the water and with it taking any hope that Levi didn’t see what he had been doing. Eren gulped nervously, shame he didn’t understand welling up in him as Levi glared at him. The small man pointed up demandingly and Eren took the hint, quickly surfacing and followed by Levi a few seconds later.

“What the actual hell are you doing to yourself to be bleeding all over the damn place?” Levi pulled himself up so he was sitting on the side, his trunks sticking to his thighs uncomfortably. Eren grinned sheepishly, wincing as he ran a finger over his tender gills.  
“Well, uh, I kinda accidentally breathed in a lot of sand and stuff when I was out in the waves, so my gills hurt really bad and I can’t get all the sand out…”

Levi’s glare made Eren trail off and duck down so just his sea blue eyes peeked over the surface.

“And why the fuck did you not tell me this sooner?”

Eren shrugged, his eyes looking everywhere but Levi. The man sighed, then stood and strode to the shallower end, slipping into the waist deep water and looking at Eren expectantly.

“Well come here!” Eren quickly caught up with Levi, who muttered a “damn kid” under his breath and led Eren to the steps. Grasping the boy around the waist, he heaved the startled merman up to the top step so he could get a proper look at him.

“Holy shit! And when were you going to tell me about this?!” Levi’s eyebrows were dangerously close to joining his hairline when he saw Eren’s body; it was littered with sand-burns and many deeper cuts that distorted the pale skin and oozed watery blood.

“Where did all this come from?” Levi’s mouth felt dry at the sight as his eyes wandered slowly up Eren’s chest until they landed on the merman’s blushing face.

“Well I was out of saltwater for a while and our bodies dry out kinda quickly, so we don’t bleed out of water to preserve our fluids or something I guess. They’ll heal in a few days, so don’t worry about them. I’ve had worse anyway.” Eren cleared his throat self-consciously, wincing when his gills flexed. Levi seemed to shake himself slightly and tore his eyes away from the cuts.

“Alright, so how do I fix these gills of yours? Can’t you just, like, swallow water or something to clean them out? I feel like this would be a necessary adaptation.”

“Yeah, well, the sand and shards are imbedded and I can’t get them out very well with my fingers…” Eren trailed off and Levi fought down the threatening look of disgust he could feel trying to form on his face.

“Okay. Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” Levi took a deep breath and tentatively placed a finger behind the slit of one gill, the merman turning away to further open the weird slice of skin. With one more breath to quell his disdain about what he was about to do, Levi slid his finger into the tight, slick space.

“Leviiii, you never told me what he e--” Hanji froze mid step, her shit-eating grin growing even bigger at the sight of her topless, blushing, and slightly ill looking friend.  
“Wipe that grin off your face, shitty glasses, and get something that will clean the sand out of this kid’s gills. Eren, don’t you dare move. I’ve already got my finger in your neck and you are damn well staying still until you won’t be ripping out your skin to breathe.”

Eren tried to turn his head to look at Levi, but the unpleasant pressure of the finger still in his gill caused him to hiss in pain and return to his earlier position.

“I think you’ve got it covered, doctor Levi,” Hanji winked and Levi almost groaned. “Hey, Eren? By the way, what’s your favorite thing to eat?”

Eren stared at her blankly for a second before he realized she as speaking to him.

“Oh, well, I don’t know what you have here on land...but my favorite fish is tuna since we rarely get many of them near enough to hunt.” Eren shut up immediately at Hanji’s intrigued gaze.

“Of course I can get some tuna! The market is only just a short walk away and the rain doesn’t bother me,” Levi raised an eyebrow.

“Then why the fuck did you make me--”

“That’s beside the point, Ravioli. Now, Eren, when you say ‘us’ do you mean--”

“Goodbye, Shitty Glasses. You might want to get going on that fish.”

Hanji pouted, but turned to leave when Levi’s expression began to turn dangerous.

“Fine, fine. But we’ll talk later, Eren!” she shouted over her shoulder, sliding the door closed behind her. 

Eren sighed once Hanji finally left before tensing up again when Levi began rubbing the sand out of his sensitive gills.

“Jesus, kid! You have half the fucking beach in here! It feels weird as hell when you talk with my fingers in your throat by the way. Don’t do much of it.”

“My sister is going to kill me,” Eren, ignoring Levi, spoke with a voice that sounded like he had just realized something akin to being told his favorite pet died. Levi remained silent, not entirely adept at ‘personal family talk.’ Or any personal chats for that matter with people he knew next to nothing about.

“Oh no oh no oh no, she and Armin are gonna talk to Jean and that frickin seahorse is gonna put the pieces together and dear Poseidon Mikasa is gonna flip! What will she do? Hopefully she’ll end Jean before she rips apart the whole ocean and oh no Armin will have to try to calm her down he isn’t good at that she’ll go crazy what if she finds out I’m on land or what if she thinks I’m dead ohhh shit I don’t know which is worse I can never go home now or I’ll be fished and--”

“Woah woah hey, what did I just say about talking?” Levi was becoming more freaked out the more Eren’s panic built. He gently removed his fingers, since Eren didn’t seem like he’d be stopping any time soon.

Oh fuck, okay Levi. You have to calm this brat down before he has an aneurism.

“--what about everybody else?! If they find out I’ve been grounded they’ll think they’re all gonna be next the whole colony will have to migrate and then I’ll never be able to find them again even if I did survive Mikasa’s wrath! What if she’s out there right now! Oh shit oh shit oh shit Levi can you see the ocean from here?!?!”

Levi jumped when Eren turned panic-stricken eyes on him demandingly.

“Uh yeah if I walk out on the deck I can but it’s raining really hard so--”

“You have to check! Is she swimming out there?!”

“How the fuck could I know? If she’s fucking underwater how could I see her anyway, even if it wasn’t storming?” Levi was beginning to get exasperated, which meant he was about five seconds away from being seriously pissed.

“Look for her fin! She’s a fucking shark look for the damned fin! Isn’t that a stereotype or some shit with humans?!” Eren was yelling now and, even worse, trying to pull himself up over the edge of the pool to see out the windows.

“Oi, brat! Calm down and get back in the water! I can’t have you drying up like a rasin and dying after all that shit I went through to get you here!” Levi yelled just as loud, grasping Eren by his bleeding and bruised shoulders with enough force to cause the mermaid to gasp out. Once Levi had his attention, he lightened up on his hold, but kept Eren still.

“Okay, take a deep breath, alright? Good. Now. Reason with me here, kid. How long did it take you to get to this shore do you think?”

“I don’t know! I can’t see the sky!”

Levi mentally facepalmed and glanced over at the clock on the wall. “The sun would be setting about now if there weren’t any clouds. Does that help?”

“I left at dawn…”

“See? There’s no way in hell she could have gotten here that fast!”

Eren didn’t look reassured, but nodded nonetheless and took a few deep breaths before coughing roughly.

“Now that all that’s over, I’m going to get the rest of the sand out of your gills and you’re going to sit still until it’s all out. Hopefully I’ll be done by the time Hanji’s finished cooking.” Levi shifted Eren down a step and led the merman to lean the side of his neck into the water so he could use it to wash out the sand.

“Finished doing what?” Eren asked after a few minutes of silence.

“You know, cooking...oh right. You don’t cook anything underwater. Wait, do you eat fish raw?”

“Uh yeah? How else can you eat them?”

“I should probably specify that to Hanji when she gets back then.”

Levi worked in silence after that, successfully cleaning out the gills on one side of Eren’s neck and was moving to the other side when an overexcited and dripping wet Hanji nearly smashed through the door.

“Ereeennnn I got you tuna and since I didn’t know how long you’ll be here I also have a ton of other local fishies for you! How’s that sand coming along, Levi?” she smirked at the older man and he rolled his eyes.

“Hold the culinary skills on those fish Hanji. He likes them raw.”

“No duh! I’m not an idiot, Ravioli,” she stuck out her tongue at him before moving to Eren’s other side and smiling at him mischievously. 

“So you like it raw, right?” she winked and Levi groaned in exasperation and Eren agreed confusedly, much to Hanji’s amusement.

“Stop patronizing the kid with references to things he doesn’t understand, you moron. And go cook supper for the rest of us because food that is still moving is not in any way appetizing.”

“Aww Levi you’re no fun at all!” Hanji grinned at Eren before leaving the room again to start cooking.

Eren was awkwardly silent for a few minutes before opening his mouth to ask the question Levi was dreading.

“What did she mean--”

“Don’t even worry about it, you don’t want to know.”

“I don’t want to know what ‘cooking’ is? You’ve already talked about it once...” Eren looked innocently at Levi, who looked back with an ‘are you shitting me’ face.

“You’ll find out soon enough, I’d imagine,” he sighed, working at getting the sand out of the last gill on Eren’s neck.

“It is interesting that you have both gills and lungs for air. Do you ever spend much time out of the water?” Levi eventually asked, trying to get the kid’s mind off whatever horrible, Hanji-induced thought he was trying to decipher.

“No, why would I?” Eren seemed genuinely surprised at the question, flicking his wide blue-green eyes to meet Levi’s. Levi shrugged, concentrating a little too hard on running his fingertip along the inside edge of Eren’s gill.

“Well I guess I do spend a little time out of the water. Every year we have to do this stupid shore excursion where all the pure-finned mermaids and mermen learn about rituals and seasonal shit from the elders. It’s really quite pointless and obnoxious, especially since my sister and my friend Armin can’t come.”

“Why not?” Eren’s gills were all clean now and Levi could feel Eren sucking water through the ones still under his fingers, but neither made any indication to moving away from this position. Even though Eren looked uncomfortable as hell leaning with half his head underwater.

“Well Mikasa is shark bred, so she doesn’t really leave the water unless it’s completely necessary, and Armin is some weird lionfish hybrid. We’re not really sure what he is actually, but his fins are too delicate to be out of the water. Jean always makes fun of me having to go every year--he’s seahorse bred if you didn’t catch that earlier--because it’s always creepy as fuck being all alone with a bunch of old merpeople and, like, two guppies at most. And all those little bastards do is whine and complain about being hungry or bored and if they fall asleep the elders yell at them and it just makes it really unpleasant. Land is really hot, too. I’d rather be fished than go to that stupid thing.”

Levi put two and two together to figure out that guppies were kids and smirked at Eren’s ranting.  
“Sounds interesting. Why do you have to go on shore, though? Doesn’t that hurt you to be out on sand for so long?”

“Yeah, it does! But we have to get used to it since...well...er...we...we just have to get used to it,” Eren finished in a rush, his face heating up in a light blush as he straightened up from his uncomfortable half-laying position, running a hand through his hair awkwardly.

Levi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t get a chance to push Eren further since Hanji came marching into the room with three plates balanced on her arms like a waitress.

“Dinner is served!”

 

“It’s...dead?” Eren was confused when he was presented with a plate barely holding a fairly large, very dead tuna. He glanced over at Levi and Hanji, both of whom were sitting in chairs with their plates holding… well Eren wasn’t quite sure what was on their plates.

“Yeah, they aren’t alive when you eat them right? You just said your people hunt fish.” Hanji seemed upset as she spoke, looking to Levi in distress. The man just shrugged, picking up a fork and spearing a shrimp.

“Well yeah we hunt, but we don’t catch them and keep them for later! You have to eat them fresh!” Eren looked even more distressed than Hanji, watching in almost disgust as Levi ate...was that a shrimp? A bottom feeder? Why would anyone eat a bottom feeder, didn’t he know what shrimp ate? They inhabited the waste reefs for Neptune’s sake! The only one stupid enough to eat them was Jean!

Levi noticed Eren looking rather greenly at him and raised an eyebrow, moving away from the shrimp and cutting into the salmon on his plate instead. Eren placed his own plate and fish on the side of the pool, nausea building in him when he began to smell it. Sure, Hanji said it was fresh, but unless it was flopping around in his hands, it was already too late to eat it.

“It was caught just this morning before the storm moved in. Try it kid. I’m sure eating a fish that’s been dead for a few hours beats starvation.” Levi gave Eren a look that shot down any protest that Eren was about to make. The merman grimaced and looked back at the fish before taking a deep breath and dumping it into the water.

Hanji jumped up excitedly and rushed to the side of the pool, Levi following behind at a less hurried pace, and the two watched in fascination as Eren used his tail to manipulate the water around the fish in an effort to convince himself it was alive. If he noticed Hanji nearly falling in the water to see better, he ignored her, sending a strong current of water at the fish before shooting after it quicker than the humans could have thought possible.

Eren sunk his dagger like teeth into the flesh, slicing through the layers of muscle and snapping the bones, doing his absolute best to pretend it didn’t taste old. The fish was gone in a matter of minutes, its blood diffusing throughout the water and random bones littering the bottom the only indication it had existed. Hanji looked positively delighted, but Levi was a bit disgusted and forced his friend to get the net to clean the remnants of the meal out of the pool.

“But Leviii I don’t want to clean the pool yet! I need to take pictures of the remains and document this and ohmygod that was so incredible! He was just like a viscous leopard seal or a shark and I have so many questions for him!” Hanji drug a bucket across the pool deck and wielded the net in front of her as she spoke.

“If you don’t clean the fucking pool Hanji, I swear I will--”

“Yeah yeah calm down, Ravioli. Use this to get Eren’s attention would you? I’m going to put some light chemicals in to clean out the blood and we don’t want to burn his scales off, now do we?”

Levi marched to the deep end with the net where Eren lay splayed on the bottom, the fish’s spine poking out from between his teeth. The man lowered the handle of the net, holding onto the mesh as he maneuvered it to poke Eren in the back of the head. The merman flinched, then flashed around and shot to the surface. Levi leapt backwards as Eren heaved his upper body over the side, his blue-green eyes narrowed, teeth bared, and gills flared at whoever dared to impede on his territory while he was eating.

Levi hit him over the head with the net.

“Damn brat, calm the fuck down so we can clean the water!”

Eren crashed gracelessly back into the water with a splash, shaking himself out of his territorial mode before resurfacing to glare at Levi.  
  “You didn’t have to whack me with that thing! That hurt!”

“You also didn’t have to look like an angry beta fish seeing its reflection when all I was trying to do was prevent you from having your fins burned off.”

Eren growled out a “sorry,” earning a smirk from Levi.

“You’re damn right you’re sorry! Now scoot your fishy ass out of the water so Hanji can clean this nasty pool. I won’t be coming anywhere near this water as long as there are bones and blood everywhere.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally done with finals and I'm writing away! I hope you enjoy :D (let me know if there's any mistakes I have to fix please!)

Armin swam back and forth anxiously, his poisonous fin rays spiking out from his tail as the strong storm current fanned his blond hair around his head like a halo. He clasped a jar containing a luminescent jellyfish tightly to his chest as he swam so he could attempt to peer into the black, gloomy water. 

“Jean, he would have been back by now if it was a joke. It’s still storming on the surface and it’s almost night! What if something happened to him? Mikasa will murder us if--” 

“Who will I be murdering now, Armin?” Mikasa, her black tail and hair melting into the darkness, caused Armin to squeak in surprise.

“We…well…Jean and I, um…” Armin glanced over at his friend, who was floating nearby, his curled seahorse tail clinging to seaweed the only indication he was nervous of Mikasa’s rage.

Jean blushed when Mikasa’s grey eyes landed on him. “What Armin is t-trying to say is that your brother, he, uh, kind of ran off after some ridiculous desire to see a...human?” Jean ended in a question, shrinking away from Mikasa, who had a reputation to overreact. Her teeth didn’t help her look innocent, either. She spun to Armin for confirmation, but the boy’s guilty look told her enough.

“Armin,” Mikasa spoke slowly and deliberately, with a calmness that was more terrifying than screaming could ever be. “You and Jean should go back to the colony for the night. I’m going to find Eren. I’ll be back in the morning. Go sleep.”

Armin nodded, his guilt magnifying as he grabbed Jean’s arm and swam off slowly with the seahorse in tow. _I should never have let him listen to Jean. Now Mikasa and Eren are out in this storm and I don’t know how Mikasa plans to find him! And if Eren never comes back,_ Armin shuddered, _Mikasa will leave us as well. The only reason she stayed was because of Eren. Sharks don’t like being in groups, so she’ll leave the colony for good!_

Armin looked back to Mikasa, but she had already vanished into the dark water. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was the last time he’d see one of his closest childhood friends.

“She’ll be back, Armin,” Jean noticed Armin’s anxious look. “She will find Eren through her crazy sister-shark voodoo and drag his stupid tail back here. And even if she doesn’t find him, she’ll come back for you at least in the morning.” Armin smiled weakly, noting the slight bitterness in Jean’s voice when he spoke of Mikasa coming back for him.

“Shell be back for you too, Jean. She just…after what happened with Marco...” Jean flinched and turned his face away. Armin trailed off, watching with his weak night vision as the shadow of Jean’s feathery gills quivered with every breath. “She just doesn’t want to hurt you with expectations.”

Jean simply nodded, turning back to Armin with a small smile below dead eyes. They swam in silence the rest of the way to the colony--a large collection of coral-camouflaged caves--and parted ways, each weighed down with their own thoughts.

Jean went straight to his cave, but Armin stayed up, surveying the sleeping colony. He swam slowly through the collections of tall kelp that were planted at the entrance of every living space before pausing at Eren and Mikasa’s cave. He pushed his head through the thick leaves, hoping against hope that Eren would be sleeping on the other side. The darkness that instead greeted him was a sharp stab of guilt and anxiety and Armin entered the whole way, resting on the carpet of sponges and laying awake, watching his jellyfish light as he waited for his two best friends to return home.

 

* * *

 

“Hanji, I’m sure the kid doesn’t need to be babysat overnight. So put down the damn mattress! I’m not sleeping here!” Levi was ignored by Hanji, who determinedly forced a queen-sized mattress from a guest room through the entirely too small door leading to the pool deck.

“Nonsense! I’m sure he doesn’t want to spend his first night ashore all alone! Especially with the crazy hurricane outside. Ravioli, remember when you were afraid of thunder and would hide under my bed? Such a cutie!” Hanji winked at Eren, who snickered at Levi’s angry expression.

“I think it was the other way around, shitty glasses. _You_ used to wake me up in the middle of the night to come protect you from Zeus or whatever random mythological deity you were obsessed with when we were six.”

Hanji gave the mattress one last almighty shove and it flumped onto the tile, Hanji landing gracelessly on top of it. She laughed when Levi looked disgustedly at the floor the mattress was in contact with.

“I mopped the floor this morning, you big baby. Here,” she rolled off the mattress and grabbed a pile of sheets and blankets from the hallway, swinging by Levi’s room to snag a pair of neatly folded boxers and a black T-shirt. Upon returning, she threw the items on the bed, ignoring Levi’s glare, and moved to draw the shutters on the windows in case the storm got any worse during the night. When that was done, she flopped down on the freshly made bed and lay on her stomach, gazing intently at an uncomfortable Eren.

“Who gave you fucking permission to be on my bed,” Levi growled, pushing Hanji so she rolled onto the floor. She giggled and resumed her previous position, now on the cold tile.

“So Eren, tell us about yourself!” Hanji kicked her feet in excitement and Levi rolled his eyes as he smoothed the wrinkled sheets.

“Oh, um, what do you want to know?” Eren’s tail twitched nervously, feeling cornered by Hanji’s knowledge-hungry gaze.

“How old are you?” Hanji figured she should start out easy to gain Eren’s trust. Levi looked up, curious at Eren’s answer.

“Nineteen tide cycles last spring."

“Is it usual for merpeople to be born in the spring?”

“Not really, it depends on the breed of the parents.”  


“How do mermaids conceive a child?”

“Excuse me? That’s not--”

“Aw come on! It it internal or external fertilization? Is there a certain mating ritual or time period? Where’s your--”

“Hanji, cut it out before the kid pops a blood vessel.” Levi cut her off since Eren looked like he was ready to pass out he was blushing so severely.

“But Leviiii. You know you’re curious too!” Hanji whined.

“I think it’s time to go the fuck to sleep. Goodnight Hanji.” Levi all but dragged Hanji from the pool deck as he spoke, pushing her through the door and sliding it firmly closed before pulling the curtains over the window wall to give them some relief from Hanji’s prying gaze.

He walked back over to his bed, sliding it closer to the pools edge and picking up his boxers and T-shirt.

“Does it bother you if I change here? I don’t want Hanji sneaking back in here if I leave.”

Eren looked at him confusedly before uncertainly shaking his head; he had always been curious what humans were trying to hide under all the cloth things they wore.

Levi shucked his trunks and was about to pull off his boxers when he noticed Eren’s curious gaze.

“What?”

Eren raised his eyes back to Levi’s face.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you minded, not if you wanted a strip tease.”

“A _what_?”

Levi smirked briefly before muttering “never mind.” It was quiet for several seconds and when Eren continued to gaze unwaveringly, Levi cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, I guess I’m staring because I’ve never seen a human without...what are they called again? Clothes or something?”

“Never?” Levi chuckled. Eren shook his head and Levi seemed to be considering something for a moment before he moved to the edge of the pool and kneeled next to Eren’s head.

“I have a deal for you, sort of an ‘I’ll show you mine, you’ll show me yours’ thing, even if that’s cheesy as shit.”

Eren looked confused. “Show you what?”

“Well, humans always wear clothes for two reasons: climate control and because we have an engrained need to hide our reproductive organs.”

Eren was blushing again, but his eyes kept wandering from Levi’s face back to his boxers.

“I-I can’t do th-that,” he stuttered. “There’s this whole, um, process and I’d have to s-shed my tail…”

“You can fucking shed your tail?! Then why the hell did I carry your heavy ass all the way up from the beach if you could just walk?!”

Eren looked at the flabbergasted Levi with a tomato-red face.

“We can only do it when we’re getting ready to mate! We have to go on land and do this whole awful ritual and choose our life mate before we can get our tails to shed! It’s so horribly embarrassing because even if nobody chooses you, you still have to stay and _wait_ for everybody to be done before you can go back home and ugh it’s the most awful thing in this world!”

Levi was a little bit stunned. He took a few seconds to organize his thoughts before speaking.

“You mean to tell me that you can only mate with one person for your _entire life?_ Doesn’t that get boring?”

“Well I wouldn’t know and I guess it’s not boring since we only meet our mates once a year--”

“Once a _year?_ What do you do for the rest of the year?!”

Eren gave him an exasperated look. “We survive and help the females raise their guppies.”

“So you only have sex _once_ every _year_. You don’t, you know, mess around at all with anybody else?”

Eren’s expression was enough of an answer. Levi’s jaw dropped.

“Aren’t you a teenage boy? Brimming with hormones and what not? How the fuck do you _not_ fuck everything you see?”

“Well I don’t…and I probably never will…” Eren nearly whispered, focusing on his hands clutching the edge of the pool.

“Why do you say that?” Levi picked up on Eren’s discontent, shifting so he was sitting on with his legs over in the water next to the merman. Eren sighed and refused to look at the human next to him.

“Well we start going to the mating island when we’re fourteen and everybody has their mate no later than sixteen. I’m the only one in my clan that nobody chose.”

“Does that often happen? Somebody never having a mate?”

“No. It’s probably because the one I was supposed to be with died very young or I don’t even have one to begin with. Either way, I’m too old after this year anyway, so I’ll just help Mikasa raise any pups.” Eren shrugged in defeated acceptance. “Doesn’t that happen to humans too?”

“Well, not really. We can choose whoever we want to be with and can stay with them forever or move onto another person if we get tired of each other. It’s not very strict usually, unless you were raised that way. Almost everybody has more than one partner in their life though."

“Do you have a mate?”

“Well we don’t call people ‘mates’ since children are optional too. They’re usually called boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, or partner depending on the relationship.”

“No, I mean do _you_ have...one of those?”

Levi smirked when he noticed Eren was blushing lightly again and seemed to have his eyes glued to his hands so he wouldn’t have to look up.

“No, I’m single. I’ve just not met the right guy yet I suppose.”

“Guy! You said guy as in man, right?”

“Yeah, I know it must not be common among merpeople if you have predetermined genetic soulmates or something. Thought it’s not all that common here either to be honest.”

Eren seemed ready to say something when he blushed and pursed his lips in indecision. 

“Yeah, it’s not common,” he finally said, his blush giving him away. Levi could have laughed at the kid’s obviousness, but he made himself remain quiet out of pity. After all, he could remember all too well what it was like to come out, and it had not been a good experience for him at all 

“Well then, I guess we’ll both just have to wait,” Levi said as he stood and picked up the abandoned clean boxers, swiftly changing into them while facing away from the pool. Eren was ready to drown himself in embarrassment. Was this all humans ever thought about? In the colony, it was just a passing necessity once a year that led to more responsibility and a higher chance of discovery.

“So,” Levi’s voice claimed Eren’s wandering attention as the man stretched out on the bed on his stomach, resting his chin on his arms so he could watch the merman. “I’m sure you have some questions now that you’ve been thoroughly interrogated by Hanji and I,” he prompted.

Eren nodded, thinking back to when he and Armin were young and all they talked about was the world on land.

“My best friend and I always wanted to know everything about humans,” he reminisced happily. “The only humans we ever saw were dead from shipwrecks, so we really only knew how they looked, not how they lived.” Eren paused in thought, looking at Levi without really seeing him.

“More than a question, I have a request,” he finally said, glancing at the curtained windows. “Can you take me to see the human world before I go back to the sea? In return I’ll try to, uh, shed my tail. But no promises!” Eren finished hurriedly.

Levi hummed his agreement, closing his eyes as the exhaustion of the day began to sink in all at once.

“Humans sleep too, huh?” Eren reached out tentatively, his fingers brushing lightly over Levi’s hair just in his reach. Levi shifted slightly closer and sighed, letting sleep claim him as Eren continued to softly pet his hair.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, Levi, wake up!” Hanji whispered, shaking Levi’s shoulder gently. Levi, curled up on his side tangled in the sheets, opened one threatening eye and glared at the woman who dared awaken him. Hanji's face was dangerously close to his own if she valued her life at all, and she was wearing an enormous shit-eating grin.

“Wha--” 

“Shhh! Look!”

Levi propped himself up on one elbow, glancing to where Hanji was pointing urgently. His stomach felt like it had dropped to his feet. Laying stretched out on the pool tiles beside his bed was a still-sleeping Eren, his head pillowed on his arms as his back rose and fell rhythmically in sleep. His blue-green scales weren't shimmering like they usually were when wet, meaning he had been out of the water for who knew how long.

“Eren! What the fuck are you doing out of the water!?” Levi shouted, jumping to his feet and swaying unsteadily in his mess of blankets. Kicking the fabric off before he could trip, he stumbled to where Eren was stretched out in front of his bed, his fins only just in the water.

The merman started when Levi grasped his shoulders and began to struggle in his half-awake state.

“M’kasa lemme go, it’s still m-m-morning,” Eren yawned widely, displaying his razor-like teeth. He finally opening his eyes when Levi began to attempt to push him across the deck towards the water.

“Levi? What’re you doing?” Eren looked thoroughly disoriented, and, as he made no move to help, Levi abandoned the task of moving him and flumped exasperatedly back on the edge of his bed.

“What am _I_ doing? Why the fuck are you out of the pool? Won’t you dry out or some equally fatal shit?”

Eren grinned. “No, I’m just making good on our deal! If I’m going to leave the water, I figured I might as well see if I’d survive it first for extended periods of time!” 

Levi glared at the proud grin on Eren’s face and opened his mouth angrily to chew the kid out for endangering his life and scaring the shit out of him, but Hanji was already talking excitedly.

“What deal? Are we going somewhere?” she rounded on Levi. “Tell me Ravioli! You know keeping secrets is mean!”

“This idiot,” he glared pointedly at Eren, who had the sense to look slightly guilty, “decided he wanted to see outside before I take him back, so I agreed. You still have Erwin’s old wheelchair, right? We’ll use that and hide his tail  somehow.”

Hanji was positively squealing in excitement. “The storm will lighten up this afternoon sowe should go get breakfast and ooh we could see a movie or go to the stores or a museum this morning and then do outside things for the rest of the day and we could even go to that seafood restaurant on the dock for dinner! There’ so much to do! Let me grab Erwin’s chair!”

Hanji bounded out of the room and Eren grinned sheepishly at Levi, who was suffering a bad case of bed head.

“Well I’m going to go shower and shit so I don’t look like a complete nutcase,” Levi stated, but paused before rising as he gave Eren a once over. “We should probably wash that messy mop of yours so it looks less like you’ve never left salt water.”

Eren ran a curious hand over his hair, which was dried in clumps of knotted mats. “I don’t see what’s wrong with it, but okay…” He propped his chin on his fist and looked expectantly at Levi.

“Well you’re going to have to wait for Hanji to dig out that chair because I have certainly carried your heavy, fishy ass more than enough.”

Eren threw him the saddest kicked-puppy face Levi had ever seen and the man sighed. He was getting entirely too soft in his old age.

“Okay fine. Fucking roll over so I can pick you up more easily at least, you spoiled brat.”

“I am not a brat,” Eren pouted, but he rolled over nevertheless and sat up, holding his arms out like a demanding toddler. Levi rolled his eyes and squatted down, lifting the boy with slight difficulty since he was so sore from the previous day.

“Jesus, do you eat fucking bricks or some shit? You’re way too thin to be this damn heavy.” Eren grinned, his bright eyes crinkling, and ran a hand through Levi’s hair once the man was holding him securely.

Levi nearly dropped him. “Oi, stop touching me; I don’t deal with that shit.”

“But your hair is so soft!” Eren hummed, the short hairs of Levi’s undercut tickling his fingertips. Levi shuddered. How long had it been since someone had touched him, or even been this close to him, without running away in fear? Excluding Hanji, he didn’t have many close friends, and those he did have were well aware what was off limits.

Deciding to just let Eren do what he wished, Levi strode of the deck and padded quietly through the house, checking every few seconds to make sure Hanji wasn’t about to jump them since Eren was now stroking the skin of his collarbone and had his head tucked into the crook of his neck.

Levi all but threw eren on his bed when they finally got to his room, the merman flailing comically in the air before he flumped onto the mattress. 

“What was that for?” he shouted after Levi, who had escaped to his adjoining bathroom and was running the water in the massive bathtub for Eren.

“Don’t merpeople have social etiquette when it comes to randomly stroking other people’s chests? Jesus Christ!” Levi shouted back over the sound of running water. There came no response and Levi sighed and leaned against the  counter, glancing at himself in the mirror and groaned quietly when he realized he was blushing like an idiot.

“Since when do I fucking blush over stupid brats? Pull yourself together, man!” Levi muttered, splashing cool water on his face before retrieving Eren from his bedroom.

Levi almost had to turn right back around and dunk his head in the sink when he saw Eren stretched out on his bed, a pillow cuddled to his chest with his bright eyes peeking from over the side of it. With a deep, centering breath, Levi snatched the pillow away, grunting something about making it smell fishy, before half-carrying, half-dragging Eren into the bathroom. Eren was smirking knowingly the whole time, and he was about to say something he’d regret to make   Levi blush more when he was heaved unceremoniously into the warm tub.

“ Woah shit it’s hot!” Eren yelped, trying to hold himself out of the rising water with his arms. Levi’s brow furrowed and he tested the water coming from the tap.

“It’s barely even warm. Besides, warm water will clean you better.”

“Well I’m used to really cold water! This is too small to swim in too; I can’t even fit my tail in!”

Levi smirked, turning off the water once it was deep enough. 

“You don’t swim in it, brat. It’s for getting clean so you don’t smell like you live on a fishing boat.”

Eren got strangely quiet as Levi grabbed his bottle of shampoo and squirted a generous amount into his hand.

“Close your eyes. Oi, Eren, why are you crying?” Levi stared at the merman in surprise as Eren turned his face away quickly.

“I don’t mean anything when I call you a brat you know,” Levi said in what he hoped was a soothing voice as he crouched down to Eren’s level, trying to get him to turn around. _God, I am shit at this comforting stuff._

“No, i-it’s not that. We don’t talk about f-fishing boats lightly. My p-p-parents…”

Levi could have slapped himself. Instead, he began gently rubbing shampoo into Eren’s hair, massaging his scalp and hoping he was comforting him.

“I lost my parents when I was young too,” Levi said, surprising himself. He never talked about his childhood, not even with Hanji. Eren remained silent, tracing his scales with one finger.

“They didn’t, um, die or anything. But I was a messed up kid and they just decided one day I wasn’t worth it and they were gone. I’ve been on my own ever since.” Levi scratched the top of Eren’s head and the corners of his mouth quirked despite the grim topic when he felt Eren arch slightly into the feeling

“How old are you, Levi,” Eren quietly asked, sounding slightly pained. Levi withdrew his hands from Eren’s hair.

“Why?”

“Please just answer.”

“Not unless you tell me why. That’s too random a question to not be related to anything we’re discussing.”

“Just, uh, a comparison I guess. My parents were...taken...when I was nine.”

Levi gave him a suspicious look, but returned to scrubbing shampoo into Eren’s scalp.

“Well I was fourteen and it’s been sixteen years. If you weren’t taught math, then tough shit,” Levi dumped a pitcher of water over Eren’s head before the boy could respond, washing the suds out of the merman’s hair. Eren was smiling again while wiping the suds off his face, thought, and Levi was glad he seemed to have such a short attention span.

* * *

Hanji came bouncing in Levi’s room just as he was forcing Eren’s arms through the sleeves of a green t-shirt.

“It’s like dressing a two-year-old, I fucking swear!” Levi grumbled as Eren fidgeted uncomfortably with the unfamiliar feeling of wearing clothes. Levi himself was only wearing a towel, having finished bathing Eren and leaving the merman to lay on his bed while he himself showered.

“Ooh, Eren, that shirt matches your eyes so well!” Hanji plopped down on the bed next to Eren, mussing his hair as she did so. Eren shifted his tail slightly away from her, but Levi noticed he didn’t seem as anxious around her as he had been yesterday.

“So what are we doing today?” the merman asked Hanji, bouncing slightly in excitement.

“We better get some damn food first, I’m starving,” Levi cut off whatever Hanji was about to say, pulling on boxers under his towel before he started sorting through clothes to wear that day. He noticed Eren kept glancing at him, but Hanji was doing a good job of distracting him by making him nervous of her proximity.

“Well, we can go out to a bakery, but Eren won’t be getting any live fish there…” both humans looked expectantly at Eren, who flushed slightly under their scrutiny.

“I guess I can try hu--”

“It’s settled then! We just have to figure out how to hide Eren’s tail and wheel him down the street!” Hanji was out the door before she was even finished talking, and Levi sighed in annoyance before buttoning up his black shirt. He scooped Eren off his bed, giving him a ‘no funny business’ look. Eren snickered, running a finger across Levi's jaw just to be a little shit, but refrained from petting Levi’s damp hair as he was carried out to the parlor where Hanji stood proudly.

“What _is_ that?”

“This is our friend Erwin’s wheelchair. He got in a pretty bad accident a while back and I kept him here while he was recovering. This wheelchair make it so Levi doesn’t have to carry you around everywhere looking like you two just got hitched.” Hanji winked at Levi and he made a mental note to trade out his friend’s usual chocolate chip muffin for a raisin one in revenge.

“Pipe down, shitty glasses, and help me get him into the chair.”

Once Eren was situated, Hanji tightly wrapped his tail and fins with damp towls and rested them on a pillow on the foot rests. A thick blanket then covered his entire lower body.

“Now, if anybody sees you, they’ll just think you’re paralyzed from the waist down or something. It’s perfect!” Hanji exclaimed. Levi didn’t look completely convinced that this plan would be a good one, but Eren was positively vibrating with excitement.

“Eren, hey, look at me,” Levi commanded his attention and met his eyes seriously. “You must tell us if you’re feeling like you’re drying out or if you need back in the water, alright? Don’t pull any bullshit on us, we want you to be feeling 100%, okay?”

Eren nodded his assurance before his face split with a wide grin.

“Let’s go!!

* * *

 

 “The bakery was only a short run down the street, but by the time the trio burst through the door, they were all soaking wet.

“Pixis, my man!” Hanji sang, wringing out her ponytail as she skipped toward the counter where an older gentleman with kind eyes was sorting pastries.

“Morning Hanji, Levi,” he nodded to each of them in turn, abandoning the pastries on the counter to stand behind the register instead. “Who’s your friend?” Pixis smiled softly at Eren, who took a liking to him instantly.

“I’m Eren! Pleased to meet you!” Pixis nodded with a calculating look in his eyes before he turned to retrieve towels for his only three customers. While he was doing so, Levi wheeled Eren up to the counter, where he instantly became transfixed by the many cakes sitting there in their glass display cases. Hanji was drooling over them as well.

“So Eren, where’re you from?” Pixis asked pleasantly, ignoring Hanji who now had her face pressed against the glass that protected the pastries, a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth.

“He’s a friend visiting from Germany,” Levi answered before Eren could open his mouth. Eren glanced at Levi out of the corner of his eye and saw him glaring at Pixis as if threatening him to question it.

“Well I’m glad to see you have more friends than Hanji and Erwin,” Pixis said after an awkward beat of silence before quickly turning to Hanji and asking what she wanted to order.

Levi crouched next to Eren, who seemed slightly overwhelmed by all this.

“Do you see anything you want to try?” Levi asked softly. Eren looked at him with wide eyes and shrugged helplessly. Levi chuckled lightly and ruffled the merman’s hair and ordered him a blueberry scone and a cup of tea to start. They were just sitting down to eat when Hanji’s cell phone rang, making Eren nearly jump out of his skin.

“Wah! You’re kidding! Nuh-uh Sasha it’s _my_ day off! Really? I guess...yeah. You too.” Hanji slammed her phone on the table and began wolfing down her food with a sense of urgency.

“I’m going with Sasha to the lab!” she announced around her mouthful, ignoring Levi’s disgusted look and chugging her tea as she gathered her things and headed for the door.

“Don’t you two have too much fun without me! I’ll be back late tonight or early tomorrow depending on how much we can get done. See you Eren! Thanks, Pixis!” Pixis shot Hanji a wink the other two missed as she dashed out into the storm. Levi sighed into his cup of tea in exasperation. 

“Well Eren, what would you like to do on your first day here?” he finally asked. “Hanji wanted to drag you out shopping and shit, but I hardly think you’d enjoy seeing a bunch of tacky junk.”

“Whatever you want to do is fine with me!” Eren exclaimed, smiling brightly. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was glad to have Levi all to himself without Hanji hanging around too. “Where did Hanji go, anyway?”

“She is a marine biologist and works for the aquarium nearby.” Levi took a sip of tea and noticed Eren’s confused look. “An aquarium is where they keep enormous tanks of fish so you can see them. They also have dolphins and other  shit. I figured you wouldn’t want to go because you see all that anyway…”

Eren appeared to be absolutely elated. “ No! No we should go there! I can show you everything I know and then when the rain stops we can go somewhere more...human-y!”

Levi glanced over at the register to make sure Pixis wasn’t listening in on their conversation, but the man had disappeared into the back room.

“Watch your fucking voice, brat,” he chastised, plucking a piece of Eren’s uneaten scone and shoving it into the merman’s mouth when he began to apologize. Levi smirked when Eren’s eyes widened and he began chewing excitedly, pulling off a bigger piece of muffin and eating it entirely too quickly.

“And yeah, we’ll go to the aquarium as soon as we’re done here. I expect on hell of a tour from you”

* * *

**A/N:**  Yay a new chappy! Enjoy my fluffy babies! :D


	5. Chapter 5

With Hanji as a friend, Levi had been forced to go to the aquarium so often he had grown to the point where he hated hearing the word itself. With Eren there though, it was a different experience entirely.

Eren was beyond ecstatic to be showing Levi his world, and equally excited to see so many humans in one place as well. He was like an overwhelmed puppy, his head snapping back and forth between the enormous tanks and the plethora of noisy children running around him. Levi couldn’t understand how the merman had so much energy, or how he didn’t have whiplash.

The other factor that made the trip better for Levi was the fact that Eren’s wheelchair allowed them to bypass lines for shows and feeling tanks. At one point, Levi left Eren by the sting ray feeling tank to go to the bathroom, and when he returned, Eren was elbow deep in the water and was petting a huge cluster of rays while the keepers gazed on in shock as to how he had attracted them all. In fact, the animals seemed to be trying to push each other out of the way to get to be pet by Eren, who was grinning happily and cooing gibberish while being stared at enviously by the collection of children standing all around the tank.

As the day progressed, more children began to follow Eren as he was pushed by Levi through the exhibits since the fish in every tank they visited would push up against the glass as if trying to say hello to their fellow fish. When Levi asked how they knew what Eren was, he would simply shrug and smile before rambling off with some story or fact about whatever fish were closest.

Towards the end of their visit, Eren was finally appearing to be getting tired. His head leaned against the back of the chair and nuzzled Levi’s hand on the handle until the older man gave in and discreetly stroked his hair as they watched the giant ocean tank. There were a couple sharks amid all the other shimmery or brightly colored fish, one of which was almost pacing in front of where Eren was sitting. Eren smiled slightly at the enormous fish before sighing and looking up at Levi.

“Thank you for taking me here. I didn’t even know places like this existed for humans. It’s really cool, you know? Even if all the fish are worried about why I’m here with a human,” Eren laughed at Levi’s shocked expression. 

“Kidding, kidding. I can’t hear what they’re saying. Most fish can’t even talk, only dolphins and some sharks. That shark is worried, though. I think he wants food.”

Levi rolled his eyes and smacked the top of Eren’s head lightly before running his fingers through the merman’s hair again. Eren leaned into his touch, smiling up at Levi before yawning widely.

“Time to go, kid. I’m getting hungry anyway,” Levi said, turning Eren’s chair around and making a beeline for the exit, which was, of course, through the gift shop. Levi tried to push him quickly through the isles of brightly colored seashells and plushie marine life, but Eren seemed to have a burst of fresh energy and begged Levi like a little kid to let him get something, pouting until the older man caved.

* * *

 

Around four in the afternoon, the two arrived back at Hanji’s house, Eren happily toying with a carved stone turtle necklace and a penguin stuffed animal and Levi ready to take a week-long nap from exhaustion.

Levi crashed onto the couch as soon as he pushed Eren into the living room, immediately burrowing into the soft cushions. Eren giggled at him, pushing himself beside the couch.

“The fuck are you laughing at, brat?” Levi muttered into the pillow he was snuggling. Eren shook his head in response, still grinning, and ran his fingers along the edge of Levi’s undercut. The man shivered slightly and raised his head to glare over the pillow.

“How are you not exhausted? You spent the whole fucking day acting like a five-year-old on caffeine,” Levi asked, causing Eren to laugh.

“You better not be ready to sleep, because I’m certainly not ready to go back in the water.”

Levi groaned and rolled over on his back, his arm over his eyes.

“What do you want to do then? Restaurants don’t open for dinner for a couple more hours, and it’s still gross as hell outside.”

Levi got no response, and was about to peek from under his arm when he felt the couch dip. Levi shot up into a sitting position, only to slam his forehead into Eren’s with a startling crack.

“Gah! What the actual fuck are you doing?!” Levi rubbed his head and glared at Eren who had fallen back into his chair and was holding his head in his palms and seemed to be blushing.

“Scoot over, I’m tired too,” Eren mumbled, peeking between his fingers at the human, who glared suspiciously for a moment before slowly laying back on the cushions. Taking this as permission, Eren pulled the blanket off his tail and hoisted himself onto the couch with his arms. It was awkward trying to situate his tail at first, but after much blushing on Eren’s part and swearing on Levi’s, the merman was comfortably cuddled on Levi’s chest, his head tucked under the older man’s chin and his tail intertwined with Levi’s legs and draping over the arm rest.

“I like touching people,” Eren hummed after a few comfortable moments. “In the sea, we never really come in contact with each other since our tails and such get in the way. That, and none of my friends like physical contact, really. Not even Mikasa when we were little.”

“I don’t really like touching people either,” Levi said shortly, but gently ran his hand along Eren’s spine over his shirt when he felt the merman tense. “But this is kinda nice. Hanji is the only one who still attempts to get close to me. She’s just too damn exuberant about everything.”

Levi’s eyes had slid shut and he was just on the edge of sleep when he felt nervous fingers tracing his collarbone.

“H-hey, Levi?”

Levi grunted, his eyes still shut as he felt and heard the boy on his chest exhale shakily.

“I, uh, well, I really, um…I just wanted to tell you…” Eren stuttered into silence and Levi cracked an eye open, looking down to where Eren’s bright red ears gave away the blush he was hiding in Levi’s chest. Levi took a deep breath and hoped the merman couldn’t hear his own accelerated pulse. He’d never been in this situation before; he had only ever been rejected or kicked out after being used for a good lay. Nobody ever really had feelings for him that extended past his body.

_No, you’re just overreacting. The brat hasn’t even said anything yet and he blushes over literally everything. Besides, I’m too grumpy and old for this kid._

Forcing himself to take another deep breath and calm down, Levi rubbed Eren’s back in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

“Spit it out, brat,” he said with no venom. Eren gripped Levi’s shirt tightly and steeled himself to meet the man’s eyes.

“I-I really like you, Levi.” Eren internally applauded himself for hardly stuttering before ducking his head again as he awaited Levi’s response. He heard the man inhale sharply and the heart under his head began to thump loudly again. Eren nearly held his breath, trying not to think of how painful rejection would be.

“Like as in…?”

“As in I think you’re really cute and nice and funny and you make me smile even when you’re being sarcastic and I don’t...I’ve never felt like this before. Please say something!” Eren rushed in one gasp of air, nearly trembling now that Levi remained silent.

“You know I’m old, and a human. And you’ve only known me a couple days now,” Levi eventually questioned, not wanting this kid to get the wrong idea about anything.

“I know,” Eren responded instantly, burrowing his face harder onto Levi’s chest. He was so absorbed in embarrassment that he didn’t feel Levi’s hands move to raise his face at first. He allowed his head to be lifted by the man, who made him blush harder when he gazed at his face, looking for any trace of a lie. He must have looked very honest and terrified, because suddenly, Levi leaned in faster than Eren could register and their lips met.

Eren inhaled sharply through his nose, his lips frozen as Levi’s gently caressed them. Only when Eren felt a tongue teasing the crease of his lips did he realize he should probably be reciprocating in some way. Before he could figure out what to do though, Levi pulled back, breaking the contact but still keeping their faces centimeters apart.

“What was that?” Eren breathed out. Levi raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“You mean merpeople never kiss each other?”

Eren shook his head, in doing so brushing his nose against Levis.

“Well for humans, whenever we really...like someone, we kiss them. It’s intimate…” Levi wanted the ground, or at least the couch, to swallow him. Explaining what kissing is was more embarrassing than he would have ever imagined. 

“So does that mean--”

“Yes,” Levi cut him off shortly, never one to really express about any kind of vulnerable emotion vocally.

“Try moving this time,” Levi suggested before raising to meet Eren’s lips once more. Eren seemed tentative initially, trying to mimic Levi until the older man once again traced his lips with a soft tongue. Not entirely sure what to do, Eren uncertainly parted his lips and Levi’s tongue instantly moved in as he deepened the kiss. Levi moved carefully, wary of Eren’s sharp teeth as he delved into Eren’s mouth and coaxed his tongue into moving as well.

After a few moments, Eren, who had not perfected the art of breathing through his nose, was feeling lightheaded and finally broke away, panting heavily. Levi didn’t seem to mind, moving to slowly kiss across Eren’s jaw, stopping to breathe with his face pressed against Eren’s neck.

“W-wow,” Eren breathed moving down so he had his head back at Levi’s shoulder level so he could tuck his head in the juncture of Levi’s neck and collar. The human chuckled, leaning back against the arm rest and running his hands along Eren’s back again.

“So what does this mean, Levi?” Eren finally asked with a hint of anxiety in his tone. Levi was silent for so long that Eren pulled away so he could examine Levi’s face. His eyebrows were furrowed, but softened when he saw Eren’s worried expression.

“What do you want it to mean? If I remember what you said yesterday correctly, you mate for life. It’s your decision.”

“Hell no it’s not my decision! You have to be willing as well! Though I don’t deny feeling like you could be my...mate. You have to decide; it’s your life as well and I don’t want you to be with me if you don’t feel happy.” Eren was beginning to get upset. Merpeople never had to _decide_ who to mate with, it just kind of happened and was over and done with quickly. Eren didn’t want that though, he wanted to spend his time with Levi and get to know him and keep him close. Eren told Levi this and the man’s eyebrows furrowed once more.

“Forever is a long time, Eren. And while I do feel something for you, I want to know you longer than two days before I commit to something like that. Besides, how would it work if you have to go back to your own home and family soon? I sure as hell can’t swim down there with you.”

Eren slumped back down on Levi’s chest and groaned, hiding his face against Levi’s neck once more.

“I don’t want to go home though. Not when I could be here with you and away from my old boring life,” Eren paused, gulping with dread. “I will have to tell Mikasa though…”

Levi was back to running his fingers across Eren’s back, one hand slipping under his borrowed shirt to feel his soft skin and the dorsal fin flattened against his back.

“How are you going to talk to Mikasa? Is that even possible without you swimming out to find her?”

“She has an uncanny ability to track me wherever I am. We can worry about that tomorrow,” Eren mumbled sleepily, moaning softly as Levi scratched the base of his tail. Levi tried to ignore how his cheeks heated at the sound, but didn’t stop his explorative fingers.

They remained in this comfortable silence for a good half an hour before Levi finally moved, sitting up with Eren in his lap.

“Let’s get dressed for dinner. I’m taking you to a very good restaurant on the dock since Hanji won’t be there to embarrass us.” Levi smirked to himself and carried Eren off to his bedroom to replace their street clothes with some more formal attire.

* * *

 

 **A/N** : Yay new chapter! Thank you all for your lovely reviews! They make me so happy to read and I'm glad people are enjoying this story! 


	6. Chapter 6

While Levi hadn’t exactly expected Eren to have immaculate table etiquette, he surely was not prepared for the horrors of feeding Eren something that required silverware. The merman’s manners were atrocious, and prim-and-proper Levi nearly had a hernia when their appetizers--a lovely dish of escargot--were brutally devoured in a manner so animalistic he, and several nearby diners, cringed. 

“Dear fucking god, Eren. Use the fork like I just told you. _Stop! You can’t eat it all in one bite!_ No, stop trying to eat the shell you’re not supposed to--damn it Eren I said _don’t_ eat the shell! Jesus, were you raised in a damn barn?!” Eren was truly flustered, having no idea why everybody was staring at him with a range of expressions from shocked to nauseated. Finally, he dropped his fork--which he was holding backwards anyway--in frustration with a clatter and sat back in his wheelchair dejectedly, glaring at Levi with a kicked-puppy expression from under his hopelessly messy hair.

“Don’t give me that look. And don’t even think about crying. Damn it Eren!” Levi huffed and stood from the table, walking around it to where Eren was sitting and grasping his hand, putting the fork in his fingers the way it was supposed to be held and helping him eat a few bites like he was a toddler. Levi ignored the looks from the other diners, but he felt the back of his neck redden when Eren leaned into him and gave him puppy-dog eyes when Levi finally released his hand.

After that, Eren became entirely too fascinated with how all the different pieces of silverware worked and by the time they received their main dishes, he was eating in an acceptable fashion, only dropping his food once in a while when he was distracted by the diners around him or the waitresses and waiters carrying around plates stacked up their arms. He couldn’t understand how amazingly balanced people were on two legs, especially when carrying around so much stuff. Whenever he had seen merpeople shed their tails, they never even stood, preferring to crawl on their elbows until it was time to return to the sea and their natural forms.

 Once Eren’s inability to eat was rectified, the meal went much more smoothly. They spent much of the time talking about their lives and families and both were equally surprised to learn how different their respective upbringings had been. 

Eren entertained Levi with his ridiculous stories of his misadventures with Armin, Jean, and Mikasa, telling him about all the perilous shipwrecks they had explored and about the dangerous deep-sea merpeople that periodically came into the shallower waters in the dead of night, forcing Eren’s clan to hide in caves whenever darkness descended lest they be eaten or taken as sacrifices. He told Levi about the horrifying time he rescued Mikasa from being such a sacrifice when they were children, killing three deep-seas in the process. 

“You just don’t have time to think about what you’re doing. And I mean, usually we avoid sharks as a principle, but deep-seas are creepy as shit and they’ll kill anything--even each other--if they get a good meal out of the deal. Mikasa had already watched her family get eaten, and I just couldn’t float around and wait when she looked so small. Deep-seas have the most gigantic teeth too,” Eren held up a steak knife to his face like a giant fang. “They’re about twice this long and their eyes glow all kinds of weird colors.” 

“How’d you manage to get her away from them?” Levi was deeply entrapped in Eren’s story, not even commenting when Eren absently stuffed the garnish in his mouth.

“Well, it was kinda cool. Jean had given me a knife thing he found in a shipwreck...actually, I stole it from him when he was sleeping but that’s besides the point. Anyway, they circle when they’re getting ready to eat and Mikasa was laying on the bottom of the ocean in the middle of them so I just waited for one to swim close enough to me and I cut it’s fin as deep as I could. The others could taste the blood in the water, and it must have tasted better than Mikasa’s because suddenly they were all swarming the wounded deep-sea. It didn’t even try to fight it, it just kind of accepted death and when the two others were done I swam out as fast as I could and sliced one of them and the other attacked and finally I just cut the gills of the last one when it was distracted. They get in this trance-state when there’s blood, so it was pretty easy to take it down. After that, I carried Mikasa back to the clan and we’ve been pretty much siblings ever since.” Eren got a faraway look in his eyes, and gazed through Levi’s forehead rather than look at his companion. 

“My mom and dad were really happy to have her as a daughter. She kept me out of trouble since she felt indebted to me for saving her life I guess. Mom adored her; they were especially close when my dad left us. Then when mom...well Mikasa wasn’t the same when it was just us left. She stared acting like my mom instead of my sister and it got overwhelming. She was always following me and keeping tabs on my every move. I know she meant well, but it’s too much after a while to not have any freedom. I guess that’s the main reason I’m even here right now. I wanted to get away from her and if it weren’t for you finding me, I’d be dead right now…” Eren focused again on Levi, his smile slowly growing back after such a heavy confession when he saw the small smile on Levi’s own face. 

“So really, it was awesome that Mikasa is an overwhelming mother figure because if not, I’d have never met you Levi!”

Levi chuckled and looked at his dorky brat with a new level of respect after that story, then promptly scolded him for attempting to lick the plate.

Eren was equally fascinated by what Levi told him about his life, though the man wasn’t nearly as comfortable sharing his past as Eren was and left out most of his upbringing. Levi did tell him about how he lived on the streets for most of his young life and had to basically survive on his own after his mother died. Eren couldn’t very well grasp the concept of living in poverty, since the only thing he had as comparison were the few nomadic merpeople who were revered as selfless free spirits and always welcome to stay in any clan for as long as they pleased. 

Levi wasn’t used to somebody taking his sketchy life as completely normal. Usually he got sympathetic looks and about three feet of distance from the few people he had told. Hanji was the only other exception.

“But that’s so cool! You don’t have to do anything but exist! There was this one merman named...uh...I forget. He was a mako though and Mikasa became really good friends with him for the few days he stuck around. The stories he told...It was enough to make anyone want to be a nomad if it weren’t so dangerous.”

“We aren’t called nomads when we don’t have a permanent home, Eren. Humans are called homeless and most people view them as a sap to society. We don’t have huge schools of fish to eat or limitless places to sleep. If you don’t have a home or a job, you do what you can just to get by. I’m not proud of what I’ve had to do to get where I am in life, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I wish I had been a merman during my childhood.”

Eren didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he settled for watching Levi play with the lemon wedge on his plate with his fork.

By the time the waiter brought them their check, Eren was crawling in his skin to leave the confines of his chair. He squirmed constantly as Levi pushed him out the front door and onto the street, the salty air making Eren even more stir-crazy.

“Can we go to the ocean? I just want to make sure it’s still there,” he said and Levi almost laughed. 

“I was planning on taking you to the end of the pier, the sun should be setting over the water so I figured you’d like to see it.” Levi stopped on the side of the street, waiting for traffic to let them cross and taking the opportunity to run his fingers through Eren’s hair.

“Ooh yes yes yes I’d love to see that! I wish you could breathe underwater, there’s so much I want to show you about my world since you’ve shown me so much of yours. The sunset looks so pretty from under the waves, it reflects off the top of the water and sends colorful rays of light down to us. It’s beautiful.”

“Maybe we can go scuba diving some time together so I can swim in the ocean with you. Though, I’m not really a good swimmer.”

 “Huh?! You can’t swim?!” Eren looked completely aghast, as if Levi had told him he didn’t know how to breathe.

 “I can, shitty brat! I’m just not great at it,” Levi said with a huff, lightly smacking the back of Eren’s head.

 “I’ll teach you then! Maybe if you practice enough, you’ll grow a tail!”

 Levi smiled down at the back of Eren’s head, quickly crossing the street and heading toward the pier, which was only a few blocks away. The sun was sinking lower and lower, so he started up a bit of a jog so they’d make it in time and Eren giggled and wiggled around, excited to be moving so quickly. Levi picked up his pace even more, loving the sound of Eren’s laughter as the boy stretched out his arms to either side to feel the air moving past his fingertips. He was still slightly sore from carrying Eren the other day though, so he had to slow down as they approached the wooden boardwalk and he made a mental note to take Eren on a car ride later that night.

 The wheelchair thunked lightly over the uneven boards, the noise relaxing accompanied by the waves breaking against the shore behind them. The pier wasn’t too busy; there were mainly hopeful fishermen casting their lines far below and a couple groups of people talking on the benches along the railing. There was one group of large guys that were all gathered around a cooler full of beer, and Levi did his best to ignore their belligerent laughter as he and Eren passed them. A few couples were walking or standing in anticipation of the sunset as well, but Eren wasn’t paying the humans any attention at that point.

 “Look look! The sun is going down!” Eren shouted, pointing to the end of the boardwalk where the sun was about to touch the waves. They reached the end of the boardwalk just in time to see it kiss the surface of the ocean and begin to sink quickly, sending out bright rays of red, orange, and pink that shot through the clouds and painted the sky like sherbet. Eren ooh-ed 

excitedly, crossing his arms on the pier railing so he could rest his chin on them.

 “This is beautiful, Levi! All the colors!” Levi smiled at Eren’s enthusiasm, settling on the arm of his chair and leaning on the merman’s shoulder.

 “I’m glad you’re enjoying it, kid.”

 They sat on the end of the pier until long after the sun had set, watching the gentle waves lap at the supports at the corners of the deck far below. Eren thought the ocean was even more beautiful illuminated by moonlight since it was something he had never, ever gotten to see. He turned to tell Levi this, but couldn’t get the words out when he saw how beautiful Levi was in the pale light. His sharp features were softened in a small smile as he looked out over the ocean and the ocean breeze played with his hair so it fanned delicately over his forehead. Eren licked his lips unconsciously, quickly averting his gaze when Levi looked down at him to meet his eyes.

 Instead he watched a couple standing near them. They were talking quietly, completely engaged with each other and paying attention to nothing else. The guy was stroking his girlfriend’s hand and she blushed as he spoke to her, too softly for Eren to hear.

 “You alright there, kid?” Eren cleared his throat nervously.

 “Hey, Levi?”

 “Yeah?”

 “Can you kiss me like you did earlier, please?” Eren met Levi’s eyes hopefully, surprised to see a blush dusting Levi’s cheeks at the request. Levi looked behind them at the other people on the dock. He had been feeling ill at ease ever since they had first gotten on the boardwalk and passed the drunken guys. He spotted them still on the pier, standing about twenty feet away and talking around cigarettes.

 “What’s wrong, Levi?” Eren pulled Levi’s attention away from the drunks.

 “Not everybody is okay with people being gay, Eren. It’s just, I’ve experienced some rough situations when it comes to people not being accepting of me and I don’t want anything bad to happen when you’re so new to all of this.”

 “We can take them Levi! I’ll destroy them!!”

 “Calm the fuck down; you can’t do shit considering you can’t even stand up, doofus.”

 Eren huffed and crossed his arms in frustration, sticking out his tongue at Levi. The human rolled his eyes, but smiled. He glanced over his shoulder once more, then sighed.

  _To hell with it_ , he thought, grabbing the front of Eren’s shirt and pulling the merman up to meet his lips. Eren smiled into the kiss, not caring that he was kind of ruining it, and when Levi broke away after hearing a loud wolf-whistle Eren tried to grab Levi’s hair to keep their lips pressed tightly together.

 “Cut it out, Eren,” Levi growled, pulling Eren’s hands out of his hair to face where the whistle came from. The group of guys were all looking their way and one of them was smiling in a very unfriendly way; like a cat who had just discovered a new mouse to play with.

“Get a load of those queers,” Levi heard the smiley guy say to his buddies, who all laughed. Levi moved behind Eren’s chair, grabbing the handles to leave the pier before anything started.

 “Say that to my face, shithead!” Eren shouted and Levi blanched, slapping a hand over Eren’s mouth as the merman struggled to look around Levi’s body at the guys, who were all now stomping over. Levi groaned; there was no way he was going to be able to outrun those guys even if they weren’t blocking the dock with their massive shoulders.

 “The fuck you say to me, shrimp? I will beat your sorry, crippled ass.” the guy who Levi assumed to be the leader of the group sneered at Eren’s once they got close. He was huge, but not in a fit way, and had thinning hair that didn’t match the rest of her perceived age.

 “Like hell you will,” Levi snapped, moving between Eren and the guys.

 “Pshtt, and I thought he was a shrimp. What are you gonna do, huh? Bite my ankles?” Levi turned red moving into a fighting stance and raising his fists.

 “Ooh look at this one getting all feisty,” the leader laughed, putting up his fists as well before moving to swing at Levi’s head. Levi ducked just in time, but he wasn’t ready for the knee that went into his stomach, forcing all the air out of his lungs.

 “You fuckers!” Eren yelled, but he couldn’t do anything but watch as a squirming Levi was picked up like a child and held over the railing.

 “Say goodbye to your boyfriend, fag,” the leader laughed before dropping Levi down to the water below.

 Levi spun his arms wildly through the air, feeling like a cartoon character as he tried to orient himself to land on his feet instead of back-flopping from over forty feet. He barely succeeded, slamming down through the surface of the black ocean. He went deep, afraid to open his eyes in the saltwater. Once his momentum slowed, he tried to kick to bring himself to the surface, but his shoes, pants, and dress shirt were weighing him down and made movement slow. The current tossed him around like a rag doll as he tried to orient himself, and soon he couldn’t tell which way was up anymore.

 Levi stuck his arms out, feeling for something, anything, as his lungs began to demand for air and he became light-headed. He felt something latch onto his leg and give a strong tug and almost sighed in relief. Eren had found him. He reached for the hand on his leg as he was dragged along, but sharply recoiled when he came in contact with the cold, extremely smooth, and almost slimy skin that did not belong to Eren at all. Levi franticly tried to kick but it was a useless attempt so he used the last of his air to shout “Eren” in a mass of bubbles.

 Almost immediately, his leg was released and he heard a high-pitched screeching. He tried to move his arms and legs to get away, but his lungs were gasping against his closed mouth for oxygen and he couldn’t feel his limbs anymore. Levi’s consciousness was failing and he struggled to stay awake, opening his eyes and blinking against the salt water. All he saw was darkness that made him wish he had kept his eyes shut. Just as he felt his consciousness start to leave, he felt strong, familiar arms wrap around his chest and he was moving swiftly through the freezing water. The last thing he heard before blacking out was Eren yelling in a watery warble to stay awake.

* * *

A/N: Wow sorry I suck. College is hard, I'll try to update as much as I can and I promise I'm not abandoning this story! Thanks for those who've stuck with me I love you all and you keep me wanting to write! <3

 


	7. Chapter 7

Levi awoke abruptly to a violent coughing fit, a migraine, and a sore stomach. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to expel the water from his lungs, and he opened his eyes to see a blurry Eren leaning over him. He didn’t realize his ears were ringing until he saw Eren’s mouth moving but heard no words.

Levi felt arms try to raise him up, but the only result was causing him to vomit saltwater onto the sand before gasping for air with raspy breaths. He collapsed against Eren’s arms and the merman’s panicked face swam through his vision as his head spun and pounded painfully.

_Sand. I’m on the beach. I’m alive. It’s nighttime still and Eren’s okay too. I’m alive. How the fuck did I not drown?!_

Levi twisted out of Eren’s arms and flumped onto the sand on his side so he could throw up again. The sand clung to his bare skin uncomfortably and he shifted so his face wasn’t in the puddle of saltwater from his stomach. He waited a few minutes for his ears to stop ringing and finally he could hear Eren basically yelling in a state of panic words Levi couldn’t keep up with.

“Eren,” he tried to say sternly, but it came out as a weak rasp and caused his throat to burn like he had swallowed fire. Eren heard him anyway and immediately collapsed onto Levi’s chest.

“Oh my god Levi thank god thank god thank everything you’re okay holy fuck I thought I was too late I thought you were dead oh my god--” Levi gasped with the weight of Eren on his chest and the merman quickly shifted so he was laying alongside Levi instead of on top of him, appearing even more upset if that was even possible at this point.

“Relax, Eren. I’m okay,” Levi managed to get out, his throat and lungs feeling like sandpaper. “Where’s my shirt?” 

Eren nuzzled his face into the human’s neck and Levi winced, but moved the arm Eren was laying on to place a hand on his back. Eren shifted quickly to sit up and Levi let his hand fall back on the sand.

“You weren’t breathing and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I’d be able to see your lungs or something...I have no idea I’m sorry I just started punching your stomach until you threw up water and started breathing again so I guess that was right.”

Levi almost laughed at how close to death he had come but was too exhausted to do much but groan quietly.

“Well at least that was kind of the right thing to do.” Levi said, another fit of coughs wracking his body. He struggled to sit up, confident that he had at least thrown up all the water in his system. Eren quickly moved to help, bracing Levi with his arms and moving behind the struggling man so his back was resting on Eren’s chest with Eren’s legs on either side of Levi’s.

Wait. What?

Levi did a double take but sure enough, there were two pale green legs on either side of his own.

“Oh god,” Levi gasped. _I’m hallucinating. Or I actually died and this is just God fucking with me for all the shit I pulled when I was alive._ He reached out and laid a hand on Eren’s thigh just above the knee.

“What the fuck happened, Eren?!” Levi exclaimed, trying frantically to twist around and ignoring the stabbing pain in his stomach as he did so. Eren wrapped his arms tightly around Levi’s torso, struggling to keep the man still.

“Calm down Levi it’s okay!” Levi made an angry noise that made it clear that it was definitely _not_ okay.

“You’re withholding information, brat. How the fuck did you lose your tail? I thought you could only lose it to mate--oh god you didn’t--”

“Levi, with all due respect, shut the fuck up. Of course I didn’t do anything!” Eren shouted, not allowing Levi to finish his sentence. “I was so afraid you were dead and when I got to shore and I couldn’t get you high enough to be out of the waves and you weren’t breathing so I felt like I needed to get you as far from the water as possible but I didn’t know what to do and I guess my body did because my tail just kind of started coming off. It was creepy feeling, like slimy seaweed being unraveled from around your body. So I ripped all of it off as fast as I could and dragged you up here and, well, I told you the rest already. I don’t know how I did it, Levi. Maybe as a defense mechanism since I was so panicked?”

“Well whatever you did, I’m glad you did it,” Levi said after a moment of stunned silence. He stared down at Eren’s legs, which looked more unnatural to him at this point than the tail did.

“Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck was that thing that grabbed me in the water?”

“Oh that?” Eren laughed nervously and began anxiously tracing his fingers over Levi’s chest.

“That was, uh, nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Spit it out, brat. That thing almost drowned me. If you hadn’t shown up and...well I’m not really sure what you did but I know I’m not dead so you had to have done something vaguely heroic at least.” Eren stayed silent, making Levi more nervous by the second.

“Don’t freak out, but a bunch of shark-tailed merpeople usually like to hang out around docks and piers during the night. Its the perfect time to hunt because nothing can see them and they like stalking around and waiting for idiots to go for a late-night swim. They’re really brutal actually. Nighttime is time for sharks near the shores and deep-seas further out.”

“I thought your sister was a shark? And if they’re brutal and hungry why didn’t they just tear me apart and eat me on the spot? One of them was just dragging me around like a doll!” Levi was getting increasingly frustrated with their position, but every time he tried to turn to face Eren, the arms around his chest constructed and made his chest heave for air.

“Yeah well. Sharks don’t like each other, but they all respect one another. I guess Mikasa got word around that I was land-bound and they were looking for me. It was just bad luck that you fell in too. They were probably trying to make me follow them by dragging you out further so they could ambush me.”

“What the actual fuck, Eren. Why are you so nonchalant about this? And how did you stop them? No offense, but you aren’t very ferocious.”

“I guess I have some barracuda or lancet in me. That and I’m much faster than any shark. Once I had you I wasn’t worried about them catching us...but if Mikasa didn’t know where I was, she definitely knows now. Oh no, what if she does something stupid like beach herself to try to get me?”

“Well, I figure she won’t do anything if she can’t see you sitting just out of the water’s reach, so we should probably move. If we can get back towards the pier I can use a phone and get a cab or Hanji to pick us up since we walked here and I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel like walking over a mile back home.” Levi started struggling to stand up, almost growling when Eren still wouldn’t let him move.

“Hey, punk. Let me go.”

“Yeah, uh, Levi? I have a problem...well a few of them actually.”

“Oh yeah? And what might those be?” Levi was quickly becoming very impatient with the merman, forcing himself to breathe evenly and not get pissed.

“Firstly, I can’t walk. Secondly, I’m naked. Thirdly, don’t freak out, but I’m kind of bleeding a little bit.”

“Wait, what? Eren let me see! I swear to god if you don’t let me go this second I’ll break your fingers.”

Eren let go quickly after that threat and Levi finally turned around.

“Oh god,” he said faintly. The light of the pier shone weakly down on them just enough for Levi to see Eren, who had pulled his knees to his chest and ducked his head to hide his face behind his damp hair. The human reached out a hand to touch a dark stream of blood running across Eren’s shoulder. He wiped at it, but Eren didn’t even flinch, so Levi slowly shifted so he could get a look at Eren’s back. He didn’t make a sound when he saw the two massive, circular bite marks that had shredded through Eren’s left shoulder and lower back, too shocked for any kind of words. Blood coated Eren’s skin, trailing in rivers to where they darkened Levi’s once white shirt that he was sitting on to keep the lower bite from getting sand in it.

“Eren. We need to get you to a hospital. Now.’ Levi pushed himself up taking a second to regain his balance after a wave of vertigo hit and caused his head to throb painfully.

“I can’t walk, Levi! And you sure can’t carry me. Just go. Call Hanji then come back for me. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not leaving you here. Its amazing that you haven’t passed out from blood loss already! Who knows what’ll happen if I just leave you sitting here?!”

“Well what the fuck other option do we have right now, Levi? Just go, please. I’ll be right here and you can take me home and bandage me up and I’ll regenerate good as new in a few weeks probably.” Eren turned to stare into Levi’s eyes, giving him a reassuring smile. Levi ran a hand viciously through his hair in frustration and indecision before yelling, “fine, damn it!” and bending down to kiss Eren’s forehead before turning and half wobbling, half running up the beach toward the pier. 

Eren closed his eyes once Levi was out of sight dropping his head to his knees as the world spun around him. He hoped Levi would hurry up, it was scary being on land by himself with legs and no way to use them should he need to escape somewhere. The tide was coming in as well, Eren could feel it’s push and pull inching the water ever nearer to where he sat. There was no doubt in his mind that Mikasa was as close as she could get to land without being washed up on shore, and the last thing he wanted his sister to see was him with legs and shark bites.

He scanned the water’s surface for any indication of life, but there was none. His shoulder and back stung and throbbed, making his head spin and despite his lack of a tail, Eren had never felt more like a helpless little fish out of water. He had managed to deliver quite an ass-whooping to the shark holding Levi, his tail making for a powerful weapon against her weaker belly. He just hadn’t been counting on there being a bull shark there as backup. He wondered if they’d fess up to Mikasa about biting her brother. It wouldn’t be wise, but she’d probably smell his blood on them anyway.

Eren rested his chin on his arms crossed over his knees, shivering as a cool breeze chilled his wet skin and wishing more than anything that he could just slip back into the water and swim home to Armin and Mikasa and even Jean. He wondered if they even missed him, or if they just thought he’d gone nomad at this point. What if he died of blood loss and never got to see Armin again? How would his best friend even know to stop waiting for him to come home?

Before Eren knew it, he was crying. Tears streaked down his face in streams, tasting of saltwater and making his homesickness even worse. He rolled forward onto his hands and knees staring intently at the ocean. 

“I’m sorry, Mikasa!” he screamed. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen!” 

He sat back on his heels, digging his hands in the sand as he watched the water for any indication that his sister was out there listening. No response came though, making more tears well up. Then, he saw it. A splash shot out of the water just beyond the end of the pier. Eren crawled forward a few paces, ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder, his shaking arms, and how his vision swam as his head spun with blood-loss. He waited for something, anything, to happen, but the splash was alone.

Eren collapsed on his stomach, trying his best to hold his upper body at an angle that let him see the water. It wasn’t for a few minutes that anything happened, but then he noticed something very near on the sand. Something had washed up on the beach about fifteen feet away and Eren struggled to figure out what it was with the lack of light. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked to him like the chewed up remains of a bull shark tail.

Eren scooted back quickly, hissing when he felt sand get into the bite on his lower back. Mikasa couldn’t see him, she’d probably go into a frenzy and try to drag herself out of the water to get to where Eren was sitting on the dry sand. He felt trapped, but there was nowhere for him to go even if he could manage to walk. A wave of nausea hit him, but he wasn’t sure if it was from his injuries or panic. Just as he was deciding to try to stand, he heard voices and saw two strips of light moving across the sand.

“Levi! Levi over here!” Eren called, his voice breaking in relief. The lights paused, then shone directly at him. Eren quickly pulled his knees back up to his chest and shielded his eyes from the brightness with his hands. He heard something strange and static-ey chirp from the direction of the people, and then a strangers voice called out, “are you Eren?”

Eren’s relief vanished. Who was this and what had happened to Levi? He didn’t want some stranger helping him if Levi was on his way back to get him. Eren stayed silent and after a few seconds, the lights pointed down at the sand by his feet, swaying as the people approached him. Eren gulped and hugged his knees, feeling utterly helpless.

“Yep that’s him all right. Ackerman said he’d be freaked out, so go slowly,” Eren heard one of the voices, a woman’s, say lowly. 

“Eren? I’m Christa and I’m an EMT. Don’t worry, we talked to your boyfriend and he sent us to come get you,” the voice said gently. The lights were only a few feet away when they stopped and moved to the side so Eren could make out two forms, one very tall and the other barely reaching the first’s shoulder.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, Eren. We need to get you to the ambulance. Can you walk, or should we call in for a stretcher?”

Eren did not like the sound of the alternative to walking. What the hell was a “streacher” and was it usual for authority figures to torture injured people? He shook his head frantically.

“I can’t walk, but I don’t want the other thing,” he said quietly. “Where’s Levi? Is he okay? Why didn’t he come get me?”

“Levi is fine. He went to the hospital to be checked over after almost drowning, but I assure you it was only because we strapped him down so he wouldn’t go running off to get you. Now we need to get you to the hospital too so we can stitch up those bites you have. May I look at them please?”

Eren shrugged, wincing when the bite on his shoulder shot a spike of pain through him.

“Ymir, would you hold my flashlight please? And call for a stretcher as well if you could. We need to get him off the sand.”

“No no no no no stretcher,” Eren said, scooting away from Christa as she moved towards him, gloved hands extended.

“Eren, you’re going to have to trust us. We need to get you to the hospital before you pass out and we need to clean those wounds before you get an infection. Please trust us; Levi is waiting for you when you get there.”

“I don’t believe you. Levi said he’d come back for me.” Eren knew he was acting childish, but there was no way in hell he was about to willingly go to a strange place with people he didn’t even know.

Christa sighed, glancing at Ymir in hopes that she had an idea.

“What if we got Levi on our radio for you? You can talk to him and he can talk to you and that way you’ll know we’re telling the truth.” Ymir said after a moment.

Eren didn’t look too sure about the idea and nodded suspiciously, waiting impatiently for Ymir to call in to the ambulance transporting Levi after asking her team to bring a stretcher down to the beach. After a few minutes, she handed the contraption to Eren, instructing him as to what button to push to be able to talk to Levi.

“Hello?” Eren said unsurely into the machine. It made a sharp static sound, and then a familiar voice broke through that made Eren want to cry with relief.

“Eren?! Thank god you’re okay. Are you on your way to the hospital too? I’m sorry, I tried to get them to wait for you so you wouldn’t be alone.”

“Who are these people and what is a ‘stretcher’? I don’t know what’s going on, Levi. They want to take me somewhere but I don’t want to go…” As Eren talked through the radio, Christa took the opportunity to examine his wounds as best she could without touching him.

“Oh no, Eren,” Eren couldn’t understand why Levi was laughing. This was a seriously terrifying situation! “A stretcher is just a bed they put you on to take you to the ambulance since you can’t walk. It doesn’t hurt, I promise.” Eren almost wanted to remind him that he broke the promise he had made to come back to the beach, but at that moment another human was approaching and Eren tensed up again.

“Here, let’s put him on so we can get him out of here as fast as possible,” Eren heard the new person say. The next thing he knew, hands were grabbing him under his arms and knees, hoisting him up and laying him on his good side on the cold, hard surface of what he assumed was the stretcher.

“Don’t touch me!” he shouted much too late, ignoring Levi who asked what was happening though the radio clutched to his chest. Christa apologized as patiently as she could, following beside Eren as he was wheeled swiftly towards the pier where a huge vehicle waited. A rough blanket was draped over his lower body when he was brought into the light. 

There were flashing lights everywhere, causing Eren’s head to spin and eyes to hurt, so he shut them tightly and buried his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Eren? Eren it’s going to be okay. I’ll be right with you when you get to the hospital,” Levi’s voice reassured him, but Eren was beyond the point of comfort. He felt the radio leave his grasp and didn’t even try to hold onto it.

“He’s...overwhelmed I think. We’ll have him at the hospital in about ten minutes, but for now I have to use this radio to communicate with the ER,” Christa told Levi. Eren didn’t listen for Levi’s response as he was too busy panicking about the feeling of being lifted on the stretcher into the back of the huge box-like vehicle. A few tears leaked out as he kept his face hidden. If only he had just gone with the sharks, he’d be on his way home with Mikasa right now. The thought made him shudder with regret.

Eren didn’t remember the ride to the hospital, or his arrival. He had lost so much blood by that point that he was alternating between unconsciousness and foggy semi-responsiveness. Levi thought it was for the better anyway that he wasn’t awake for the stitches he received or the blood transfusion. To Eren, the whole ordeal seemed unreal, and their evening of dining and enjoying the sunset felt like a lifetime away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Poor baby Eren. Be prepared for some angst and fluff comin your way in the next chapter! Thanks for reading and thank you for the kudos and comments! They seriously make my day to see :D


	8. So sorry guys

So I have decided over much deliberation that I'm not going to continue my fanfics. I started writing this in high school and now that I'm several years out I just don't really have the passion to make it good or try to continue up a plot, especially with school and work and irl relationships taking all of my time. Thank you so much for my followers that stuck with me to the end, you guys mean the world to me and I am forever grateful for your limitless support. I'm going to be deleting this and my other wip within the next month, so if somebody wants to take it and continue writing it please do so, I would love to see what you do with it! <3


	9. Update

I am so so sorry for the long hiatus on this.

I was going to upload as soon as I could, but school beat the shit out of me.

I'm getting around to this and I plan to start posting new chapters for this once season two comes out and more people come back to the fandom.

Thanks for sticking with me!

-Kayu (the second author)


	10. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi sat in the back with Eren and held out his hand to offer it to Eren. He looked up at Levi's face, questioningly, but took Levi’s hand anyways. Eren felt completely lost, so it was nice to have a hand to hold and possibly to guide him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took over this fic nearly a year ago, and I finally uploaded!  
> I took over ten pages of notes on the previous chapters of the fic to insure as many points of continuity.  
> I know my writing style's a little different, but I'm not sure I can really change that.

Eren couldn't understand what he was feeling. He couldn't see anything, what he heard was muffled and didn't sound familiar in the slightest. He tried to blink his eyes open, but his eyelids were simply too heavy. As he slowly regained consciousness, the noises he was hearing became clearer. He still didn't understand what he was hearing, it sounded like nothing he had heard before. A little noise, almost like a chirp, went off in a measured pattern. His eyebrows twitched as his body tried to furrow them.

 

He could hear some voices become clearer as well. He thought he could recognize one of the humans that had taken him off the beach, but he couldn't remember her name. But then he heard Levi's voice, and his heart sped up, and so did that unnatural chirping in the background. Levi's voice sounded more concerned and he felt the lightest touch on his arm. He knew it was Levi, it had to be. Eren tried to open his eyes again and managed to see a sliver of light before his eyelids shut again.

 

He felt like he was lying on a bed of sponges back at the colony, but this felt much softer. He almost felt weightless on whatever he was lying on. It kind of felt familiar, but Eren was struggling to think of what it was. His memories of the last few hours were flying through his mind and confusing him as he tried to think clearly.

 

Wait! He knew what this felt like! The memory of him being tossed onto the bed in Levi's room felt just like this. Was he in a human bed right now? He needed to move. He needed to open his eyes and see where the hell he was taken to. He needed to make sure Levi was okay. Eren tried moving his fingers, but only got one to twitch.

 

"He's waking up." The EMT informed Levi as Eren tried to place who that voice belonged to. Christa, perhaps? Or, perhaps it was Ymir, Eren really couldn't tell.

 

Levi said nothing in reply, but Eren could feel Levi gently squeeze his hand. It was odd, but comforting to Eren somehow. It made Eren want to try harder to wake up and see his beautiful little human. Eren tried to twitch his tail, but couldn't feel it. Then he remembered that he had lost his tail in the panic to get Levi out of the water. He tried to wiggle the little digits on his foot and found the sensation completely foreign. Is that how it normally felt for humans?

 

Eren tried opening his eyes again and opened them wide enough to see blurry faces in front of him. He recognized Levi almost immediately and blinked his eye again to try and see Levi more clearly. He managed to keep his eyes open, and the world around him came into focus. Eren recognized the blonde EMT as Christa, and he wondered where Ymir was. But he was more focused on Levi. The adoration and relief in Levi's eyes shone as he squeezed Eren's hand tighter. Eren tried to sit up, but his body was stiff as stone. Christa noticed him struggling and helped him into a sitting position by angling half the bed up.

 

Levi let go of his hand to gently stroke his hair before settling his hand on Eren's cheek. Eren smiled and weakly lifted his arm and placed his hand over Levi's. Christa said something to the two of them, but neither of them could really pay attention to her. And she left the room to go get the doctor.

 

"I thought I had lost you," Levi whispered, his fingers curled a bit to hold Eren's face more tenderly. "I thought I wouldn't be able to see your beautiful eyes again."

 

"I thought I had lost you, too." Eren whimpered. "I don't think I can imagine a life without you, Levi. I think you were meant to be my mate."

 

Levi's eyes widened and pulled his hand away from Eren's face, still showing some hesitancy to the idea. "I still want to wait a few more days until we know each other better."

 

Eren frowned a little, but he should have expected it. After all, human and mermaid customs towards mates were very different. Levi had already told him that he wasn't comfortable with the idea of accepting his mating proposal just yet, and Eren knew that he needed to accept it and respect his future mate's decisions. "How long is just a few more days?"

 

"I… I don't know Eren." Levi sighed and looked away as the doctor walked into the room to check on Eren before allowing him to leave the hospital. Hanji followed the doctor in, pushing Erwin's wheelchair in front of her, anticipating that the doctor would let Eren go despite how little time he had spent in the hospital.

 

The doctor had Levi help her to get Eren into a sitting position so she could look over Eren's stitches. Eren almost threw up when he saw his skin. What the hell had happened to it? It was closed, and it wasn't bleeding anymore, but what was all that prickly looking stuff in there? Why didn't those bites hurt anymore?

 

While Eren was freaking out, the doctor was talking to Hanji and Levi about what kind of pain killers Eren was on, what medications he needed, and when to take him back to the hospital for a checkup. Eren was barely paying attention to them until Levi put his hand on Eren's shoulder and had Hanji help him get Eren into the wheelchair. Eren gently brushed his fingers against the stitches and felt odd. Why wasn't his body in pain when he touched them? Did humans have some sort of way to numb pain? That must have been it because he couldn't think of any other reason.

 

Hanji draped the blanket over his medical gown and wheeled him out of the room. Eren's eyes were still unfocused as he tried to understand what was going on. He understood that Levi was okay, he understood that he himself was okay, he just didn't really know how everything happened. Perhaps now wasn't the time to question that, so Eren decided to relax and lean back in the wheelchair as Levi opened the hospital's doors so Hanji could awkwardly get the wheelchair through the door.

 

Eren stayed quiet while Hanji wheeled him through the parking lot. It made Levi worried. He had thought that Eren would be throwing out question after question, trying to understand human hospitals and trying to understand what he just went through. But his usually energetic mermaid seemed a little vacant at the moment. Levi hoped it was only shock. Hanji also noticed Eren's sudden quietness and didn't want to bother him or startle him further, so she kept her questions about his new legs to herself.

 

It was difficult and awkward getting Eren out of the wheelchair and into the car. Levi had to pick Eren up and carry him again, but somehow it was more awkward without Eren's tail. Levi struggled to get Eren situated in the car while Hanji folded up the wheelchair and shoved it in the back of her car with the rest of the random junk she had back there.

 

Levi sat in the back with Eren and held out his hand to offer it to Eren. He looked up at Levi's face, questioningly, but took Levi’s hand anyways. Eren felt completely lost, so it was nice to have a hand to hold and possibly to guide him. The drive back was silent, but the tension slowly dissolved when Eren started to relax.

 

Levi had worried that the medicine used on Eren might react differently with mermaids than with humans. Levi decided that he needed to keep a closer eye on Eren, just in case Eren did have a bad reaction to it. Though Levi doubted it, considering the fact that the medicine was used on him the day before. It didn't hurt to be extra cautious as Eren healed though.

 

When Hanji's beach house came back into view, Eren finally felt a little safe again. All he wanted to do was just relax with Levi. Neither of them were truly hurt, they didn't get separated, and Eren had legs now. He could finally make good on the promise he made to Levi. The human had shown him his world, and now Eren had shed his tail for him. It was so bizarre to think that they had made that promise only a few days ago. It felt like a year had gone by since he was beached.

 

Eren wondered if the colony had realized he was gone. He knew Mikasa, Armin, and Jean did, but did the rest of the colony know? Did the rest of the colony care? Maybe they were glad he was gone. Eren always did cause a lot of trouble.

 

The mermaid sighed as they pulled into Hanji's driveway. Eren shook his head a little to try and forget about the colony for now. He just wanted to focus on being with Levi and recovering from yesterday's incident. Was it only yesterday? Eren's brows furrowed as he realized that he had absolutely no idea how much time had passed.

 

"L-Levi?" Eren asked quietly as Levi opened his car door. Levi's head snapped in Eren's direction, a little alarmed and worried about whatever it was that Eren needed from him. "How many days has it been since…"

 

"Two days," Levi answered, knowing exactly what Eren meant when he saw the glassy look in his eyes. "You were in the hospital for two days."

 

"Hospital…?" Eren tilted his head in confusion as he repeated the human word. Is that what the weird building had been? Eren didn't like the way it smelled or the strange sounds he heard there. But Eren knew that's where the humans had healed him, so it couldn't have been that bad of a place, right?

 

Levi didn't hear Eren's mumbling when he got out of the car to get the wheelchair. Maybe he didn't need it to bring Eren in though, maybe he could get away with just carrying Eren inside. But he still needed to get the chair out of the car either way. Thankfully Hanji was there to help him get it out of the car without pulling out a metric crap-ton of other random shit Hanji had in her car.

 

"I'll hold my questions off for a day, but tomorrow I'm going to chat his ear off," Hanji whispered to politely inform Levi. In all honesty, he was really thankful for the few times when Hanji knew to back off for a while. Although, Levi found himself silently dreading the next day. He was betting that at least a third of Hanji's "questions" were going to be to see Eren's dick. Levi knew she would claim that it would be "just for science", but Levi didn't think that was a valid enough reason for Hanji to see his boyfriend's dick.

 

Was Eren his boyfriend? Levi assumed he was, as he opened Eren's car door and carefully pulled Eren into his arms. I mean, Levi was carrying Eren like a bride, and Eren had already proposed to Levi in a way. That had to make them boyfriends, right?

 

Hanji rolled the wheelchair into the house as Levi slowly made his way in, careful not to hit Eren's head on the door frame. Once they were in the house, Levi was a little quicker on his feet and carried Eren over to a sofa to sit down, while Hanji ran outside to make sure her car was locked.

Eren relaxed in Levi's arms and rested his head on his shoulder. He could most certainly get used to being so close to Levi. Most mermaids never got the chance to be this close with their mates. If Levi agreed to his proposal, then Eren would be the luckiest mermaid in the entire world. He didn't want to pressure Levi too much, but they could have died a few days ago. He had almost lost Levi, and even though they weren't mated, Eren was sure that his heart would ache just as much.

 

Eren nuzzled his head into Levi's neck and just melted on top of him. He breathed in Levi's scent and knew that Levi was the one for him. He couldn't possibly see him with anyone else. He wouldn't dare imagine running back to the ocean without him. Maybe it was too soon to say that Eren would be willing to leave the ocean for him, but it was certainly how Eren felt.

 

Hanji walked back into the house and locked the door behind herself. She peeked into the living room and grinned. Levi couldn't see Hanji since his back was to her, but Eren's eyes popped open when he felt someone's gaze on him. He blinked as he stared at the scientist. Hanji knew she was intruding, but she couldn't help but stare happily at the little couple.

 

She had always wanted her friend to find someone that would not only make him happy but someone who would know just how much Levi was really worth. Eren had only been there a few days, but Hanji knew they were perfect together. It warmed her heart to see her grumpy little Levi so clearly in love. Sure, she hadn't expected him to fall for a fish person, but everyone has their little thing.

 

Hanji left as Levi started to turn his head, wondering about what Eren was staring at. She giggled as she dodged out of sight, so Levi knew immediately that his friend was being a little bit of a creeper. Levi considered growling at her to fuck off, but he decided not to. Instead, he just wanted to enjoy some quiet time with Eren. He felt like his body literally craved Eren. He didn't really understand what the fuck it was all about, but he wasn't really in the mood to question what his body needed right now.

 

Levi thought back on Eren's question from earlier, how long was he really going to wait before he agreed to be Eren's? Levi didn't want to just get hitched after a week, but he couldn't imagine himself with anyone else. Eren seemed to be the first person that was into him and saw Levi for Levi, not just his body. Levi felt like he could trust Eren with his whole heart. So why was Levi hesitating?

 

Levi pulled himself out of his thoughts and decided that he just needed some time to think about this later. It wouldn't be wise to marry a mermaid after only four days of knowing him. Levi needed to make sure that they were truly compatible. They had managed to get along for a few days, yes, but what if Eren got aggravated with Levi's need for cleanliness. What if part of Eren's mermaid rituals and needs were too much for Levi to handle? They shouldn't just dive into a marriage like this.

 

Levi knew that Eren saw him as his only chance of taking a lover, and Levi knew it would be painful to reject Eren. But could it possibly be worse than having a miserable relationship that neither of them could leave? Levi didn't think so. It would be cruel to Eren to make him wait for an answer, but even crueler to not take the time and make sure that this was the right answer.

 

Levi supposed that he just needed to take Eren out on more dates in safer locations. Maybe he should bring his brass knuckles and show off his fighting skills to Eren. Maybe mermaids liked displays of aggression when considering mates, it would certainly let them know whether or not the potential mate would protect them and their young.

 

For now, however, Levi knew that Eren would probably rather stay at home. Levi assumed that the incident had made Eren a little scared to venture out into the human world. Maybe during the week, he could start to bring Eren back out into the human world little by little. Or maybe he was blowing this out of proportion and Eren was fine.

 

But communication was always the first step to a strong relationship. So, Levi needed to talk to Eren to find out just how badly the other night affected him. Levi made a mental note to ask Eren later that night. For now, he just wanted to hold Eren in his arms and just know that he was okay.

 

Hanji awkwardly walked around her house, not really knowing what to do with herself. Levi had been her main source of entertainment since he got there. It was certainly going to be boring the first week that Levi left to go back home. Wait, what would Levi do then? Would he take Eren with him back to the city, or would he leave Eren behind? Hanji's brows furrowed as she started to worry about her friend's relationship. Eren didn't seem like the type who could last in a long-distance relationship.

 

But Hanji didn't get the chance to really wonder about their relationship because she heard her phone go off and she rushed to go answer it. She tripped over an armchair on the way to grab her phone and adjusted her glasses as she answered the phone. She barely took the time to glance at the caller's name to see that it was Sasha. It better be important.

 

"Hanji! You need to come in immediately." Sasha's voice sounded like she was barely able to breathe since her words were so rushed. "The Reiss private aquarium dropped off a specimen because it was too lethal for them to keep contained anymore. They thought we might want to just kill it and dissect it, but I don't think-" Sasha's frantic words were cut off by Hanji.

 

"Lethal? Has it killed people? Where did they get it?" Hanji was well aware that Reiss was pretty shifty and seedy when he acquired his fish. Hanji knew for a fact that most of those fish were captured illegally and kept in terrible conditions, but Hanji didn't have enough proof to expose them.

 

"They said that some fishermen found her off the coast a few years ago. She's been trying to escape ever since and she's drowned a few guards in the process. But, Hanji-"

 

"So, is it an intelligent one, like are we dealing with an octopus here? I know you can deal with those. Or is this just a large fishy that has a knack for-" This time Sasha cut off Hanji in absolute exasperation.

 

"This thing looks like it's half human! I don't know what the fuck we're dealing with here. Moblit's trying to study her without hurting her, but she won't let us get close to her. We need you down here!" Hanji held the phone away from her ear as she gazed back into the living room to look at Eren in Levi's arms. He looked so happy to be with humans, but she knew that this other mermaid had probably only been abused by them.

 

"I'll be right there!" Hanji practically shouted before hanging up and dropping her phone in her pocket. "I gotta head out to the lab!" Hanji informed Eren and Levi, disrupting their little cuddle session. But Levi didn't mind the little disturbance if it meant that Hanji would be out of their hair for the evening.

 

Hanji bounded over to her car and yanked the door open. She buckled up and slammed her car door shut and started to back out of her driveway. She drove like a demon on her way to the lab, and she was sure that she probably ran a few other cars off the road, but so long as no one died and she didn't get arrested, then it was fine, right?

 

Hanji parked her car in her reserved spot and pulled out her key card. She ran to the back door marked by an "employees only" sign and dragged her card through the slot and entered her pin number. She heard the door unlock and tugged it open. She grunted at the weight of the metal door, for some reason she was still shocked by how heavy it was, despite the fact that she had been walking through that door for years.

 

Hanji ran through the mostly empty back rooms and rolled her eyes as she took her key card out again so that she could access the elevator. She understood that these were all necessary precautions, but she wished that she didn't have to use the damn card each and every time she needed to go somewhere. Hanji entered her pin once more so that she could step into the elevator and hit the number for the floor just above the basement. She probably should have asked Sasha which floor they were keeping her on, but the rule of thumb here was, "the more expensive the fish, the deeper in the ground". And if this really was a mermaid they were dealing with, then she was probably priceless.

 

The elevator eventually shuddered to a halt and Hanji stepped out and saw a large tank at the end of the room. Piercing amber eyes stared at Hanji, wondering what hell this human would bring her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, so sorry for the wait! I'll try to update often!


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